'Fight like hell': grievance and denialism rule at Trump Georgia rally
An unrepentant Donald Trump has urged voters in Georgia to back Republicans in Tuesday’s Senate runoffs and vowed revenge against Republican state officials who refuse to overturn his own defeat.
On a chilly night at a remote airport in Dalton, the US president mercilessly aggravated divisions within his own party, embracing loyalists and castigating perceived traitors. While it was ostensibly a campaign rally on behalf of Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, he could not resist veering off script to push bogus claims of a stolen election.
“We won the presidential election, we won it big,” Trump falsely told a sympathetic crowd, “and we’re going to win tomorrow”. Loeffler duly joined him on stage and promised to join a dozen other Republican senators objecting to Joe Biden’s electoral college win on Wednesday.
Trump noted that the press “didn’t like” a Saturday phone call in which he can be heard badgering Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to thwart Biden’s victory there. He promised to punish Raffensperger and state governor Brian Kemp, also a Republican.
“Your governor, your secretary of state are petrified of Stacey Abrams,” he said, referring to a Democratic voting rights activist who lost to Kemp in 2018. “What’s all that about? They’re say they’re Republicans. I really don’t think they can be.”
The president added ominously: “I’m going to be back here in a year-anda-half and I’m going to be campaigning against your governor and your crazy secretary of state.”
Control of the Senate depends on Tuesday’s elections in Georgia and it remains unclear whether Trump’s scattergun interventions will help or hurt the Republicans’ cause against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
His relentless war on the integrity of the election has triggered party infighting and fears that some disillusioned voters may stay away from what they regard as a broken system. His potentially illegal phone call to Raffensperger, revealed on Sunday, could cause further damage and fire up Democrats.
Trump sought to resolve the contradictions by arguing: “You must deliver a Republican victory so big the Democrats can’t steal it or cheat it away.”
But he went on to spend less time on Loeffler and Perdue’s merits than his own sense of grievance and denialism, reeling off a long list of numbers that he claimed showed he was robbed of victory in Georgia. The state counted its votes three times before certifying Biden’s win by a 11,779 margin. Officials found no significant irregularities.
More than once, Trump read from a script that implied Senate wins are vital to keep a president Biden in check, only to break off and deny Biden’s legitimacy. “They’re not taking this White House. We’re going to fight like hell.”
He also repeatedly claimed that he had won Georgia in 2016 and did so again by an even bigger margin in 2020. “There’s no way we lost Georgia. This was a rigged election. We’re still fighting it.”
Previewing Wednesday’s meeting of Congress to ratify the electoral college vote, he said of Mike Pence, the vice president who will oversee proceedings: “I hope Mike Pence comes through for us.”
Dozens of Trump campaign lawsuits have been tossed by courts including the supreme court. Trump complained: “I’m not happy with the supreme court. They are not stepping up to the plate.”
Trump flew to the venue on his Marine One helicopter, greeted by cheers for what was possibly his last rally as president. Tents outside sold “Stop the steal” flags and shirts. At the small regional airport, two giant US flags hung from cranes, with numerous more flags dotted around the makeshift arena. Two big video screens displayed the message: “Save the Senate & Save America.”
The crowd was warmed up with familiar Trump rally music, some of which gained new poignancy. Queen’s lyrics, “We are the champions, no times for losers” was immediately followed by Frank Sinatra’s “And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain ...”
Perdue could not attend because he is in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who has Covid-19 but he sent a video message. Trump and other speakers warned that victories for Ossoff and Warnock would send America down a path of far-left socialism.
The president’s eldest son, Don Jr, urged: “Don’t let Georgia be the starting point for the radical left in the United States Senate because that’s who they’re running. There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat. That party is long gone. It’s now a Marxist socialist party, a communist party.”
Don Jr warned against Republican apathy because of the current election disputes, suggesting that taking their ball home and not voting “would be the dumbest statement in the history of politics”. He pleaded: “Guys, when you’re at a disadvantage, you don’t take your ball home. You fight harder!” His voice cracked with fury on the final word.
The crowd chanted: “Fight! Fight!” There were also speeches by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and new congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. She said: “We’re not going to let Georgia go to two radical socialists.”
Some attendees wore masks but many did not and there was little physical distancing and little concern about Trump’s explosive call with Raffensperger.
Clayton Bentley, 60, a retired fraud investigator from Rome, Georgia, was wearing a blue “Trump: Keep America great” cap and tucking into a big bag of popcorn. “I know Trump was only asking about the things going on here,” he said. “He said all I need is 11,000 votes. I don’t feel like it’s a bad thing.
“He was saying let’s get to the truth and let’s do what’s right to get to the bottom of it. I feel that phone call was fine. He’s the president; he should be able to call anybody.”
Janie Lopez, 42, a counsellor from San Benito, Texas, agreed: “He wants to make sure they cross the i’s and dot the t’s and this is the final count. He wants to make sure this is a fair election.”
Lopez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, added: “I believe he won the election. How many past presidents have run for a second term and lost? It doesn’t happen often.”
Susan Huff, 77, also felt that a Trump defeat did not make sense. “I do believe Trump was cheated out of the win. You can’t have 73m votes and not win. You can’t have rallies like this and not win. Something went wrong somewhere. I’ll always believe that.”
Huff, a retired school teacher wearing a red “Make America great again” cap, acknowledged that Trump’s attempts to discredit the process could deter Republicans from voting in the Senate runoffs.
“Some people have said because of the election in November they won’t come out to vote. But I hope they understand that if they don’t vote to get these people in, we’re in big trouble. I don’t want socialism in our country: the only people who make money are the ones at the top.”