“God has now spared my life,” Donald Trump told an arena full of supporters in suburban New York last night. He waited a beat while more than 15,000 members of the MAGA faithful began to hoot and applaud inside Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Then he completed his thought: “Not once but twice.”
The assassination attempts—one near-fatal shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania; one foiled attack at his golf course in Florida—have emboldened the former president.
“These encounters with death have not broken my will,” Trump said. “They have really given me a much bigger and stronger mission.”
Judging from last night’s rally, that mission is the same as it’s been since Trump commandeered the GOP in 2015: lob outlandish accusations at his political opponents, paint American cities as hellscapes, and demonize migrants. Some 72 hours after potentially losing his life again, Trump sounded like—who else?—Trump.
This is a particularly charged moment for the former president. He’s falling behind in many swing-state polls, and his messaging is as chaotic as ever. Last night, Trump claimed that Joe Biden is secretly working with Iran, and that Kamala Harris wants to pack the Supreme Court with as many as 25 justices. He spoke of “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments” of homeless people, and made a dark joke that New York parents who let their kids ride the subway alone have “a 75 percent chance” of never seeing them again.
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Antagonizing migrants remained a prime fixation. He warned that Venezuelans are “taking over your buildings and your land.” He pledged to visit Springfield, Ohio—a city that has been seeing increased racial strife since he and his running mate, J. D. Vance, helped spread the false rumor that Haitian immigrants are eating pets. Trump mocked the efforts of Springfield’s mayor to help migrants assimilate and learn English. His own fix was simpler: “We’re getting them out of our country.” He insisted that rapists, gang members, and other criminals are pouring in from other nations: “They’re coming from the Congo. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming from all over the world,” Trump said. “Asia! A lot of them are coming from Asia.” Sounding like Network’s Howard Beale, he asserted that he and his followers are “not gonna take it” anymore. “November 5th,” Trump told the overwhelmingly white audience before him, “will be your liberation day!”
But why was Trump talking about this in New York, of all places? His midweek stop at a suburban arena some 20 miles west of the Queens hospital where he was born seemed more vibes-based than tactical. Trump told the crowd that he would flip the state from blue to red on the electoral map for the first time in decades, a claim so improbable, even he didn’t seem to believe it. Slightly more likely is that Trump’s presence may affect downballot races and the state’s congressional makeup. Although New York City is reliably blue, pockets of Long Island are Trump country.
Indeed, the rally site was packed with his fans, who seemed even more enamored of the former president and his antics than usual. Some also spoke of him as something akin to a living martyr. “God has a plan to use Donald Trump to help save this nation,” Jay Moon, a young Trump supporter from Tennessee, told me. Moon and his family are Christians who are following Trump around the country in a decked-out pickup truck. Plastered on one of its passenger-door panels was a giant image of Trump wielding a tommy gun, with the phrase Merry MAGA You Filthy Animal. Maria Orlando, a 59-year-old born-again Christian from Suffolk County, New York, told me that she was “100 percent” certain that God was protecting Trump and covering him in “amazing grace.” (She also shared that she prays for Trump and the Democrats alike.) “I see this as more of a spiritual battle literally between good and evil,” she told me. “And I think that’s why you see more violence and hatred coming out.”
Even though Trump is out there playing the hits, with just 46 days left in the election, and with Harris’s recent bump in the polls, his campaign has a fresh sense of tension and an undercurrent of violence. Of course, his team would say the same about the opposition. Earlier this week, Trump’s campaign sent an email to reporters claiming that the “psycho” who allegedly brought a military-style rifle to his golf course on Sunday “was egged on by the rhetoric and lies that have flowed from Kamala Harris, Democrats, and their Fake News allies for years.” The email included a list of politicians’ quotes referring to Trump as a “threat”—from Harris, Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and Adam Schiff, to name just a few. It also included a list of quotes from journalists.
I’ve been to Trump events all across the country over the past three presidential-election cycles. I’ve come to believe that you can gauge the tenor of his movement by what the vendors outside the gates are hawking, and what people wear to the rallies. Right now, people are anxious and pissed off.
[Read: You should go to a Trump rally]
For months after he was indicted in Georgia last year, Trump’s brooding mug shot was omnipresent on merchandise. These days, though, you can’t escape the image of Trump raising his fist alongside any number of battlelike phrases: Bulletproof. Never Surrender. Fight! Fight! Fight! Violence is a defining theme of the final weeks of Trump’s retribution campaign. Consider the red sleeveless tank top with Trump throwing up two middle fingers that reads You Missed. Or the shirt with Ronald Reagan and Trump that says I like my presidents like I like my guns: 40 and 45. Or the shirt that says I clean my guns with liberal tears. Or these car decals: Prepared not scared (with the image of a bullet). Bear arms or wear chains. Live, Laugh, Love, if that doesn’t work, Load, Aim, and Fire. All for sale. Yesterday, I spoke with one vendor selling knives—pocket knives, folding knives, bowie knives. Depending on state laws, he told me, he’s also been selling switchblades.
This is what Trumpism looks like, up close, in the final weeks of the 2024 election. Last night, Trump bragged about his “total endorsement” from the National Rifle Association. Gun owners, he shouted, “have to get out and vote.” And he returned to one of his earliest pitches: “What the hell do you have to lose?” Nine years after his infamous golden-escalator ride, many Americans know exactly what they stand to lose. He still might win anyway.