On June 15, I attended a Donald Trump rally in Atlanta, Georgia. And it was actually fun in its own way. Until it wasn’t.

I’d never attended a Presidential rally before, or any political candidate’s rally for that matter, but the tickets were free and that happens to be exactly the maximum price I’m willing to pay to see Donald Trump live.

Earlier that morning, he had attended a private fundraiser, hosted by the Georgia governor and the founder of Home Depot, where ticket prices ranged from $2,700 to $100,000 to attend. I briefly wondered how he would attempt to pretend that accepting $100K checks from wealthy benefactors could be consistent with his repeated bragging about his supposed “self-funded campaign,” but then I remembered that he’s never expressed any interest in consistency before, so why start now? After all, they’re offering him the two things he loves the most: money and attention.

Some people even paid $10,000 just for the “privilege” of taking a photo with the man; from my seat at the Fox Theatre, I didn’t even waste the battery or storage space necessary to take a photo of him.

When I arrived at the theatre, they’d already had an opening speaker and an invocation. They were in the middle of the Pledge of Allegiance as I headed towards the back of the lower level gallery, reaching the doorway at the same time the crowd recited “one nation, UNDER GOD”, with significantly more volume and fervor than one might expect at a rally for a man whose favorite book of the Bible is “Two Corinthians.” 

In any case, that was the atmosphere I immediately witnessed downstairs. So I sat in the balcony. 

My free ticket had included the instruction “No posters, banners, or signs may be brought into the event.” This turned out to be less about protecting the view of people sitting behind you and more about controlling the message, because volunteers were actively passing out ‘official’ Trump for President 12”x18” signs for attendees to hold. I’d come armed with my own ‘Citation Needed’ sign, in case the event turned out to be so boring that I’d prefer to get kicked out for unsolicited factchecking.

The sign was the only thing I came armed with aside from my iPhones (one to post on Facebook, one to record audio), both of which got inspected by security officers as I walked through one of the many metal detectors they’d erected at the Fox Theatre’s entrance. When Donald Trump said in May that he wants to get rid of gun-free zones, he apparently only meant that in the plural sense; he rather strongly supports a gun-free zone, a mobile one which conveniently radiates out from him at its center.

As I took my seat, the Georgia GOP’s director of minority engagement was at the podium. He spoke about how we should want “reasoning skills” and “substance” in who we support for President, which I couldn’t agree with more. He also said he sees those qualities in Donald Trump, which makes me question whether Mr. Smith has the same definitions for those terms that I do. Donald has a well-documented history of promoting conspiracy theories, and not even the sort that he had to think up and rationalize; he’s just gullible enough to regularly believe the nonsense other people put in front of him, without pausing to question it. Maybe the speaker was thinking of a different Donald Trump than the one who made himself the ad hoc spokesman for Birtherism during the last Presidential campaign, and who recently accused an opponent’s father of being tied to the JFK assassination. His constant flip-flopping on positions would admittedly make a lot more sense if there were two Donalds engaged in a “Prestige”-esque long-con.

Next at the podium was Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition and founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. (He clearly enjoys coalescing.) In his remarks, he referred to the mass shooting in Orlando, and other unspecified shootings, as “so-called lone wolf attacks,” complete with finger air-quotes around the phrase “so-called.” Taking a page from Donald’s playbook, he didn’t explain what he meant by the term or his insinuations, instead allowing the audience to draw its most conspiratorial conclusions (that the shootings were orchestrated by ISIS? Obama? a ratings-hungry 24-hour news network?) while permitting himself a degree of plausible deniability. 

Finally, to introduce Trump himself, Herman Cain took to the stage, eliciting thunderous applause before he delivered his stirring opening words: “Shucky ducky.” The crowd loudly booed the mention of Mitt Romney’s name; an unexceptional response at a Democratic rally, perhaps, but somewhat surprising at a rally for the 2016 GOP nominee. Cain also insisted Trump wasn’t a racist because he knows from growing up in Georgia what a racist looks like. Which suggests that, one, Herman Cain thinks New York racism looks the same as Southern racism, and two, that he apparently determines whether people are racist based not on the things they do or say, but on his own stereotypes about racists.

Cain’s declaration that “Donald Trump is not a racist” also drew one of the loudest and most exuberant responses from the crowd all day. As if “not a racist” was a selling point and not a baseline expectation. Admittedly, this was a pretty white crowd; not completely whitewashed, but about as racially diverse as a Celtic Woman concert on PBS.

Then, after Cain was finished with his introduction, Donald Trump strolled onto the stage…fifty minutes later. No explanation was ever given for this delay, and of course no apology was made. Based on reports from other rallies, it seems this sort of gap is typical at Trump rallies. We listened to Donald’s Elton John-infused playlist blasted over the Fox’s speakers at oppressive volume the entire time, except for when his senior policy advisor interrupted to speak briefly about a few topics, starting with why America shouldn’t allow in more Syrian refugees. I’d like to say this was ‘real crowd-pleaser stuff’ in a sarcastic tone, but sadly, the audience was quite excited at the notion of not helping refugees fleeing their violent homelands.

When Donald eventually stepped on the stage, he was accompanied by former UGA head football coach and athletic director Vince Dooley. This is a man who, after Jimmy Carter, is possibly the closest thing the state of Georgia has to a civic saint. Disappointingly, he offered a full-throated endorsement of Donald, saying “You’re the one who’s going to make America great again. God bless America, God bless Donald.” I found myself wishing the former coach had instead opted for classic but vapid locker room coach-speak, along the lines of ‘I hope Donald goes out there and runs a strong race, and if he has the heart and the resolve, then he can successfully win more votes, and he’ll be able to beat the Democrats and come out on top!’

Finally, it was time for the main act. Donald proceeded to talk extemporaneously for almost a full hour, during which time he delivered what might liberally have constituted at least several minutes-worth of actual content. 

As I continued to post my live commentary on Facebook, an entertaining distraction for a number of my friends for that next hour, I discovered that Trump’s presentation was somewhat less engaging than I’d hoped. He’s like audio Red Bull; high in energy, completely empty in substance. His speech was that MacBeth quote brought to life, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

That doesn’t mean he didn’t have his share of mockable moments. Donald Trump is incapable of going more than a few sentences without saying something ridiculous, and I listened to him ramble for almost a full hour. If anything, live commentary is an exercise in discretion, choosing to focus on the new nonsense I was hearing instead of the same nonsense he’s already said for months.

He repeatedly betrayed his ignorance about basic government operations, as when he claimed that the refugee process involves no papers or scrutiny, or when he proposed that there should be fewer state dinners, and foreign dignitaries visiting the President should instead be treated to “eating a hamburger on a conference table.” Donald Trump is a man who lives in a gold-plated apartment and who brags about his own (defunct) line of steaks, but who believes visiting national leaders deserve no greater respect than takeout from Five Guys. (That’s assuming he wouldn’t just present Chinese President Hu Jintao with a sack of White Castles.)

He summed up international trade by saying “They benefit by us, and we don’t benefit by them,” as though his economics education started and ended with an eighth-grade social studies assignment. Which, judging by this comment, he also failed.

He also offered up his patented self-contradictory political proposals. He insisted America should stop taking in refugees from countries plagued by terrorism, and instead proposed that the U.S. build “safe zones” overseas, which he then insisted other countries would pay for because…he’s such a great negotiator? Donald is, after all, a man who has previously condemned “nation building” who was now promoting the creation and maintenance of foreign “safe zones,” and to say I didn’t follow his logic would imply there was a logic to follow.

Similarly, he spent several minutes discussing trade policy, first by declaring plainly and firmly “I believe in free trade,” and then in the following minutes immediately backtracking on that statement and saying that he doesn’t care about free trade at all, just about “making good deals.” As opposed to all those previous Administrations who had foolishly set out to make bad deals, I suppose.

There was fear-mongering, as when he told the crowd that refugees and immigrants come to the U.S. “and want to take it over.” There was vacuous rhetoric posing as policy, as with his repeated commitment to “winning.” There were the moments of inexplicable ignorance, as when he called Belgium “a beautiful city” or said that the forty-nine victims in Orlando were “injured”, not dead. There was unintentional irony, as when he claimed “I’m a good student, I learn very quickly,” a prime example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect if ever I’ve seen one. And there was my favorite line of his whole speech, when Donald said “I don’t want to be right.”

No, you clearly have no particular interest in being right, Donald. Not that you were ever being inundated with accusations of excess accuracy.

After Donald was done, I headed to lunch. I had arranged to meet some friends who work nearby, and even though the rally had ended an hour later than I’d anticipated (due to that fifty-minute gap in the middle), they were waiting in a diner across the street.

Before they had to get back to the office, they mentioned something, almost in passing, that put the entire day in a different context. Whereas I had strolled into the rally without a second thought, they had been anxious about even being out on the street outside the theatre. I’d been mildly concerned about my reputation; they’d been concerned about their safety.

Why? Because while they are from Alabama, their parents are from India. And even though Trump hasn’t prioritized offending Indians the same way he has other ethnic groups (yet), the two of them didn’t feel comfortable being on Peachtree Street outside his rally.

To emphasize: they felt uncomfortable being on the street outside a major Atlanta arts center. In a business district. At noon on a Wednesday. During a rally for a major party’s Presidential candidate. And not as protestors, but as pedestrians. All because of the color of their skin.

They had that caution and trepidation even without knowing that inside the Fox Theatre, Donald Trump was describing the Orlando club shooter by saying “He was born here, but his parents weren’t,” as if that fact alone was a negative indictment of his character and a sign of his un-Americanness. Donald Trump openly stoked his audience by telling them that the biggest reason to have feared Omar Mateen was his family and his heritage, while my friends were outside wondering when would be the best time to walk to lunch and risk encountering that same audience.

The longer I thought on this, the angrier I got. I’ve spent the past several months regularly calling out Trump for his lies, his ignorance, his irrational proposals, his conspiracism, and much more, all because I recognize what an unmitigated disaster he would be as a President. And I say that as someone who ran as a Republican for state office less than twelve months ago (and who lost by the sort of margin Trump should have lost by).

But I also say that as a young, nerdy, white male. As much of a threat as Trump poses to the country and to the world at large, I’ve never felt a direct threat to me, on an individual level. I didn’t look out of place at a Trump rally, and I didn’t feel physically uncomfortable there. No one asked me if I was friend or foe, like some African American attendees were asked. My biggest concern in attending the rally was the possible shame of being confused for a Trump supporter, instead of a critic.

I didn’t think going to the rally would make me dislike Donald Trump more; I wouldn’t have believed that was possible. But those few words at lunch hit me harder than anything Donald said in his hour onstage. I love my friends dearly, and it upsets and outrages me that a man whose supporters they can’t even feel safe around is a man who next year could be the most powerful person in this country. Their country. He isn’t the President, he isn’t even officially a nominee, yet he’s already hurting the people I care about.

I hadn’t expected to feel motivated after a Donald Trump rally, but ultimately I was. Just in the opposite direction. I’ve long known Trump to be a fool and a laughingstock. I even trekked to his rally for the express purpose of ridiculing his campaign. But it took my friends to make me realize that he hasn’t been funny for a very long time.

- by Loren Collins. Originally published July 1, 2016, at https://www.facebook.com/notes/loren-collins/i-attended-a-trump-rallyand-it-changed-me/10155054406734358.