By Brooklyn Dottin
Former president Donald Trump traveled to Uniondale Sept. 18 to hold a rally at the Nassau Coliseum, attended by several thousand energetic supporters. Many waited in line for hours to hear the presidential candidate speak at 7 p.m., while vendors sold Trump merchandise and food trucks offered light fare.
Michael Bauer, an entrepreneur from Islip, said he believed Trump would improve America. “He wants to make America great again, and he has all the ways to do it . . . ” Bauer said. “He’s going to bring the cost of gas down, bring the cost of groceries down, fix the border.”
The rally came only three days after a second assassination attempt on Trump at his West Palm Beach golf resort. Rosemarie Harrington, from Jamaica in the West Indies, said Trump faces political persecution and that he need not do anything further to gain more voters after two attempts on his life. “We are awake. We know the truth, and therefore, it does not matter what they do to him, and if they do, we are going to show more support on his side,” Harrington said.
It was clear many attendees agreed with Trump’s anti-education, anti-media rhetoric. Speaking as he stood in line to enter the rally, a man named Matt, who studied management and finance at Hofstra University in the 1980s, said, “Everything is compromised, every institution: education, media, of course the politics, Hollywood, everything. The cleanup is hard to do, and it runs deep, because everything is compromised.”
Many people waved signs supporting Trump. Some read “47,” “Trump, Vance” and “Make America Great Again.” One read “Drain The Swamp,” Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan that referred to the federal government in Washington, D.C.
In his speech, Trump spoke on immigration and the southern border, saying immigrants bring crime to this country and kill people, citing Springfield, Ohio, where a young boy died last year after being struck by a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant with a Mexican driver’s license. The boy’s death was deemed an accident.
The boy’s father, Nathan Clark, has implored Trump to stop invoking his son at his rallies, saying, “They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members. However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”
Meanwhile, statistics show that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than Americans born in the U.S.
Vania André, editor-in-chief of The Haitian Times and a public relations professor at Hofstra University, commented on Trump’s positions, saying the former president’s language poses a threat to immigrants, particularly those who are black and brown.
“When he spews that type of hateful rhetoric out there, it trickles down and has a very real impact on the day-to-day lives of Haitians and Haitian immigrants living in this country,” said André, who is a first-generation Haitian American.
In his speech, Trump also made false claims about his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris’s positions, saying, “She wants to put illegal aliens into your Social Security . . . She wants free sex change operations for illegal aliens.”
In speaking on the Israel-Hamas conflict, Trump said, “A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote to obliterate Israel.”
Trump ended his speech with shouts of, “We will make America powerful again….We will make America free again….We will make America great again.” Chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” followed.
Anthony Davis said he thought the rally would bring Trump more votes. “It was cool. I thought it was cool,” Davis said. “He has a great, significant number of supporters. I’m looking forward to what he has in store, if he wins, or when he wins.”
