Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
‘Thank you’ tour ends where campaign began
MOBILE, Ala. — He strode out on a catwalk at a football stadium here to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” A 50-foot cedar tree, which aides installed behind his stage with a crane, was decorated in Christmas ornaments larger than a human head. His crowd, thousands deep, held up familiar signs (“Make America Great Again”) and reprised signature chants (“Lock her up!”).
“This is where it all began,” President-elect Donald Trump exhorted, basking in the adulation of the Alabamans who had come to see him Saturday afternoon in the same stadium where 16 months earlier he staged the first electric mega-rally of his improbable campaign.
This city in the nation’s Bible Belt was the symbolic last stop in Trump’s journey to the White House — the conclusion of a ninecity, pre-inaugural road show.
Rather than striving to heal wounds from a bitter election, as past presidents-elect have done, Trump has traveled on his “USA Thank You Tour” only to states he turned red on election night. He has whipped up his massive crowds, and they have shown their allegiance — a powerful reminder to Congress that it would be politically dangerous to cross him.
“It’s a movement,” Trump declared in Mobile. “Don’t forget, they didn’t know you existed until Election Day. And then they said, ‘Where the hell did all those people come from?’ ”
Trump’s foot soldiers hope he continues campaign-style rallies.
“He has to keep an open line to the people,” said Sue Anne Balch, 61, an immigration lawyer in Alabama. “I know how it is. You catch Potomac fever and forget everything.”
Trump agrees. “They’re saying, ‘As president, he shouldn’t be doing rallies.’ But I think we should, right? We’ve done everything else the opposite. This is the way you get an honest word out,” he said in Mobile.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who ran unsuccessfully for president this year as a Democrat, said, “Mr. Trump has every right in the world to thank his supporters in those states in which he won, but as the president-elect, he also has the responsibility to assure all Americans that he is listening to their concerns.”
Trump’s approach, different as it may be from his predecessors, appears to be no less strategic.
“He wants these voters to be heard loud and clear by Congress,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant. “This is less of a thank-you tour and more of a beready-to-fight tour.”