Team Trump

Student attends rally in Council Bluffs

The chattering crowd gathers in front of a tall podium. The shorter attendees near the back stand on their tiptoes trying to catch a glance of the stage. A man is shaking his fists at the news cameras, aggressively yelling about the media for being too socialist. A woman is waving a poster so vigorously that her fingernails have made indents in the paper. Yet none of this seems unusual at the Donald Trump rally.

Sophomore Mckenzie Nelson spent a sleepless night and hyper day waiting in excitement to attend the campaign event. On Sept. 28, a group of passionate supporters gathered in Council Bluffs to hear the Republican Presidential Nominee outline the main points of his campaign.

“There was lots of yelling and lots of random chanting throughout his speech. The ‘build a wall’ and ‘locker her up’ chants were going for a while,” Nelson said.

Nelson is referring to Trump’s main campaign points, which include reducing immigration, creating jobs, and closing doors to Syrian refugees. As a self-described Trump supporter, Nelson began backing Trump for President after taking an online quiz that matched her political views with his. Her support also stems for her disdain towards Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton.

“[Clinton] has been in politics for 30 years and if she hasn’t made the change in that time, putting her on a higher pedestal isn’t going to make the change. It’s better to take a chance on someone who hasn’t been in politics,” Nelson said.

On the other side of the spectrum, junior Shelby Danhauer also attended the Trump rally. Unlike Nelson, however, Danhauer has neutral views and tries to stay away from politics. She attended the rally to take photos but soon became interested in the environment amongst the rest of the supporters at the rally.

“I don’t support everything Trump says. He would ask people who agree with him to raise their hands and I wouldn’t be able to, but I felt like I should because everyone was,” Danhauer said.

According to Danhauer, the best part of the rally was when Trump asked for a show of hands of all Christian conservatives. While Nelson passionately shot her hand up, Danhauer did not.

“Everyone raised their hands but I couldn’t. Then he jokingly asked if he should kick out all non-Christian conservatives but eventually decided to let us stay,” Danhauer said.

Nelson and Danhauer represent the sharp distinction between extremely political and politically neutral that is apparent in this election. While some are excited by the potential of the new election, others are nervous about its outcome.

“I don’t like anybody. I think Obama should stay,” said Danaher.

With such a divided nation, Nelson believes it’s important for people, especially young people, to get involved in politics the correct way.

“Students have to understand that there’s always going to be a biased view. You just have to try to find the facts behind what’s going on and focus on what you actually believe in,” Nelson said.