I spoke to a Trump supporter at the Clinton rally
‘He’s our next president’ she said to passerby
On Friday, Hillary Clinton held her last rally in Pittsburgh before the election. It was held at the Great Hall at Heinz Field. There were at least 400 people there. Katy McGinty, who is running for Senate against Pat Toomey, and Pittsburgh native and billionaire Mark Cuban introduced Clinton.
From what I could hear, they all said exactly what I expected- this is the most important election ever and we all need to vote for Hillary because Donald Trump is dangerous. The microphones they were using were terrible and it was hard to hear them consistently throughout the event.
Something I hadn’t seen before until that day was pro-life Trump supporters. They were at the start of the line. There was also a Trump-supporting priest but he was just talking about how sex is bad and bringing up Hillary’s emails, and other general nonsense. This image is of the main group of protesters. I think it speaks for itself.
I wanted to talk to one of them. Lucky for me, they were outside the exit as the rally ended. Despite their message and my political views, I kept an open mind.
I talked to the woman wearing the red sweatshirt. As I was standing near the group, many passersby made fun of them. The first question I asked her was “What is your biggest problem with Hillary? What issue do you feel is most important?”
“Well, the list is endless,” she replied. “She’s not pro-life, number 1. In all of her debates and interviews, she never mentions lower takes. She only talks about higher taxes on the rich, which means higher taxes on everyone. Freedom of religion is a big thing- we have Christian oppression- she wants to break up traditional marriage… and the Catholic church. I don’t trust her with the national security of our country.”
At this point, she grabbed a table comparing the two candidates on the issues, and explained each issue one by one.
“She will not appoint pro life Supreme Court justices. She supports the Iran nuclear deal that threatens Israel. She will not protect the 2nd amendment. She supports boys in girls’ public school bathrooms. I don’t agree with that, she want’s to put transgender bathrooms in.
“Defund Planned Parenthood? She will not. Protect Biblical religious conscience? No- that’s freedom of religion. She will not. Reduce the EPA regulations on coal and oil? You gotta get electricity from somewhere, you gotta get it from coal. End of story.
“Support federally mandated healthcare- absolutely yes! But Obamacare has destroyed us, and we need choice for healthcare. We can’t have government telling us what health insurance we can use. We want to pick our own insurance. Protect traditional marriage- no. We want to protect traditional marriage. If you don’t that’s fine- there’s places you could go. We don’t want you telling our churches what we should do.
“Support school choice including private schools? No she does not. If your kids are in the Pittsburgh public schools like mine are, you got transgender bathrooms. My kids have gym 3 times a week, no computer teacher- no computer at all at Brookline elementary. Common core math- my kids are being taught 22+22 is 40. 48+53 is 100. They’re not even teaching them addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Common core is the downfall of society.
“Why do my kids have to have gym 3 times a week? Place a hold on Syrian refugees? No. Look, Saudi Arabia has deserts, we can build camps there. Families are coming over and getting healthcare, food and have an interpreter payed by a state, and coal miners are getting denied. They’re put out of work because of Obama’s sanctions.
“Repeal IRS restrictions on church speech, she says unknown- which means no. If it’s free speech for the right, the liberal left doesn’t like it. And last but not least: support American energy independence? No.
“We should not get our gasoline from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. We need to drill in Alaska and become energy independent. Because if a terrorist attack or something serious happens here, we can’t be waiting on Saudi Aruba for oil. But the most important thing- the pro-life movement.”
I tried to figure out where the footnotes on the paper were, but there were none to be found, which was a shame because I was genuinely curious about some of the things she mentioned. For some of the topics she was talking about, I could see where she was coming from- on others, I just couldn’t find her reasoning for thinking that way. Speaking with her made me understand Trump supporters more, and informed me on issues that they care about.