Brynn Anderson/AP Photo
The rally was filled with the greatest hits of the past five years.
DALTON, GEORGIA – President Trump’s final rally as chief executive, at the Dalton Regional Airport in northern Georgia, served two purposes. Officially, Trump was here to stump for Republicans in Tuesday’s Senate runoffs. But this rally was also a way for Trump supporters to travel back in time, to a day when the coronavirus wasn’t infecting one out of ten people in this small town, to a moment before Trump lost his bid for re-election.
The Victory Rally, as it was called, was held the night before Georgia’s Election Day, and two months after Trump’s general-election loss, simultaneously premature and too late. But in Trump’s eyes and in the eyes of some of the attendees of this rally, it’s not too late for Trump.
“There’s no way we lost Georgia,” were Trump’s first words. “I had two elections and I won both of them.” When Trump first mentioned the Republicans who will be on the ballot on Tuesday, the crowd responded with its first chant of the speech, “Fight for Trump.”
Trump stood onstage under floodlights on the airport tarmac, where Marine One cinematically landed behind four enormous American flags. But looming larger than his aircraft was the shadow of Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, complaining about the election results. On the call, Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to find him 11,780 votes. There are now calls for a federal investigation and an official complaint to the Georgia Board of Elections.
But that didn’t matter at the Victory Rally.
At the Dalton Regional Airport, Trump won the election in a “landslide.” All of the Trump supporters interviewed by the Prospect at the rally believed Trump still might serve as the sitting president after the inauguration on January 20. The theories about what could still be done in the presidential election were incredible, in the sense of not being credible. The same stories about dead people voting, ballots being destroyed, and rampant fraud in November were parroted by many.
Liz Campbell, of Atlanta, voted in October for the general election, utilizing the advance-voting system. “I did have confidence in the election at the time,” the 34-year-old construction worker says, “but not anymore.” On election night, she flipped through the channels, expecting to see results come in. But instead, she latched onto segments about the “mass voter fraud” that took place. Campbell voted early in the runoff as well to show her support for Trump and the Republicans, despite her doubts.
The “evidence” continued to mount on OANN, Newsmax, far-right YouTube channels, and Twitter. Trump himself has contributed massively to this misinformation campaign. Despite the fact that election officials and other watchdogs have debunked the fraud allegations, it doesn’t mean anything to these Trump supporters.
Trump, who spoke for more than an hour and a half, spent most of his time propping up these claims. He was most interested in talking about voter fraud, as the crowd chanted, “Stop the Steal.” But occasionally he remembered why he was in Georgia to begin with. “There’s no place like a Trump rally,” he said with a smile. And then added, “But this is a David rally and a Kelly rally.”
Sen. Kelly Loeffler only spoke for about two minutes, when Trump invited her onstage to promise that she would vote against the Electoral College results on January 6. David Perdue sent a video message to the rally, where he made no such promises. He has an out, because he’s not technically a senator right now. Perdue’s term expired January 3, and he will only return to Washington if he wins the election, which won’t be certified in time for January 6.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, who recently survived his own Democratic challenge, was also in attendance, as was newly elected congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter, in whose district the event was held. Graham didn’t speak and is currently not a part of the group of senators pledging to challenge the Electoral College certification. Greene spoke briefly to endorse Loeffler’s pledge.
While Trump still claims victory in the presidential race, he also said at two different points during the rally that in a year and a half he will campaign against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Raffensperger when they come up for re-election. The released phone call is just the most recent public spat between Trump and the Georgia officials.
The rest of the rally was a walk down Trump’s political memory lane: Mexico is going to pay for the wall, “remember the caravan,” Hillary Clinton, “I get along very well with Kim Jong Un,” and many more of his greatest hits. All were well received by the audience.
It was all received by the press at the event as well: recorded on camera, photographed, and written down in notebooks from numerous outlets covering the Victory Rally, in addition to all of the other rallies for the last four years. As Trump riled up the attendees to boo the press pen, he also bid adieu to the intensity of the spotlight that comes with the presidency. There’s little reason to think Trump (or his influence) will evaporate after he leaves office, but no matter what Trump says or what is posted online, this is, by all accounts, Trump’s last rally as the 45th president of the United States.
Or, as Campbell would prefer to say, “Everyone is banking on January 6, but really we have until January 20 to see what will happen.”
