I spent five hours at the Donald Trump rally in Sacramento, California, on 1 June. I spoke to and overheard dozens of the rallys attendees, not as a journalist but as one ticketholder to another I was dressed in jeans, workboots and wore a Nascar hat and found every last one of the attendees to be genial, polite and, with a few notable exceptions, their opinions to be within the realm of reasonable. The rally was as peaceful and patriotic as a Fourth of July picnic.
And yet I came away with a host of new questions and concerns. Among them: why is it that the song Trumps campaign uses to mark his arrival and departure is Elton Johns Tiny Dancer? Is it more troubling, or less troubling, knowing that no one in the audience really cares what he says? And could it be that because Trumps supporters are not all drawn from the lunatic fringe, but in fact represent a broad cross-section of regular people, and far more women than would seem possible or rational, that he could actually win?
