BACKERS, BASHERS MEET OUTSIDE TRUMP’S RALLY
True colors come out in full force in Manchester
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Thousands of Trump fans and hundreds of Democratic protesters traded verbal jabs outside of President Trump’s rally here Thursday night, getting heated at times though stopping short of physical confrontations.
As Trump began to talk, and thousands pro and con watched his speech on a big Jumbotron outside the packed SNHU arena, shouting matches broke out between small pockets of MAGA fans and Trump haters.
Rhys Llywellyn of Hooksett, red MAGA hat above a curled mustache, got into a heated argument with an anti-Trump protester over socialism, both shoving fingers in each other’s faces. Afterward he claimed victory, exasperatedly telling the Herald, “She couldn’t name any country where socialism works … Trump’s growing the economy, and it’s great.”
Nearby, protester Chuck Fassi, holding a sign with an illustration of a bawling baby Trump behind bars, shook his head after disengaging from a spat with several Trump fans over immigration.
“It didn’t go very well — some people have their ideas just so ingrained,” Fassi of Gloucester, Mass., told the Herald.
Earlier in the day, Robert Cucurrull weaved through the line outside, handing out Twizzlers in his custom number 45 Patriots jersey with “Trump” on the back.
“Really, most of my clothing is Trump clothing,” Cucurrull, of Peabody, Mass., told the Herald as he foisted more candy on passersby. “I just like him. I want to see the America I grew up in preserved for
my grandchildren.”
The “Keep America Great” reelection rally was Trump’s first public event in the Granite State — a swing state that’s highly politically active due to its early primary status — since he won the presidency in 2016.
That also brought out the couple hundred protesters, who kicked off the event in the afternoon trading insults and middle fingers with the MAGA fans.
Maxine Bellew of Marlboro, Mass., held a mocking “Baby Trump” balloon, one of several such little balloons modeled after the giant version of Baby Trump that’s floated over protests in various countries. At one point a little Baby Trump got loose, floating north over the Manchester skyline and out of sight.
Bellew said she thinks Trump is racist, sexist and “a heap of other things that builds up into one pile of ‘Dump Trump.’ ”
Joe Aceto, sitting atop his truck bearing dozens of signs, and in front of a crane that held a few more, bearing slogans praising Trump, religion and the right to bear arms, countered, “The Democrat Party — the stuff they’re suggesting won’t help the country.”
Aceto said people come up to him all the time saying they love the president, but he added, “A lot of them are afraid to talk about it because they think people are going to come up and say something crazy.”