WARREN, Mich. (AP) — Paige Cole is one of the “Anons.” The mother of three from Eastpointe, Michigan, says Joe Biden is a sham president and believes Donald Trump will soon be reinstated to the White House to finish the remainder of Biden’s term.
“His whole inauguration was fake. He didn’t have real military people. He had like fake badges, fake people. And Trump is actually our president,” she said while waiting in line for his latest rally on Saturday at Macomb Community College. Wearing a pink “Trump 2024” hat and draped in a large, “TRUMP WON” flag, Cole — a former Democrat who says she voted twice for Barack Obama — began to cry as she described the significance of Trump’s return and the 1,000 years of peace she believes will be ushered in with it.
“It’s gonna change everything,” she says, “like we have never in humanity seen before.”
Trump’s rallies have always attracted a broad swath of supporters, from first timers taking advantage of their chance to see a president in person, to devotees who camp out for days and follow him around the country like rock band groupies. But after spending much of the last two years obsessively peddling false claims of a stolen election, Trump is increasingly attracting those who have broken with reality, including adherents of the baseless QAnon conspiracy, which began in the dark corners of the internet and is premised on the belief that the country is run by a ring of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles and cannibals that only Trump can defeat.
As he eyes another White House bid, Trump is increasingly flirting with the conspiracy. He’s reposted Q memes on his social media platform and amplified users who have have promoted the movement’s slogans, videos and imagery. And in recent weeks, he has been closing out his rally speeches with an instrumental song that QAnon adherents have claimed as their anthem and renamed “WWG1WGA” after the group’s “Where we go one, we go all” slogan.
Trump and his allies often dismiss suggestions that he advances conspiracy theories or condones violence. “The continued attempts by the media to invent and amplify conspiracies, while also fanning the flames of division, is truly sick,” his spokesman, Taylor Budowich, said in a statement. “America is a nation in decline and our people are suffering, President Trump and his America First movement will not be distracted by the media’s nonsense, and he will instead continue fighting to Make America Great Again.”
But interviews with more than a dozen Michigan rally-goers Saturday underscore his influence and serve as reminder that many cling to his every word and see his actions as validation.
Several of those interviewed said they only began attending Trump’s rallies after the 2020 election, when they said they had become more politically engaged. Several, like Virginia Greenlee, of Holland, Michigan, said they had been in Washington on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, trying to halt the peaceful transition of power by disrupting the certification of Biden’s win.
“President Trump really woke people up because I didn’t even know there was a deep state or fake media, fake news, until he started bringing light,” said Greenlee, who said she did not go inside the building, but watched from outside. She blamed the violence on leftist protesters masquerading as Trump supporters, though there is no evidence to support that claim.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to elevate those who peddle conspiracies. Mike Lindell, the MyPillow salesman who has spent millions trying (and failing) to prove the election was stolen, spoke twice Saturday — once outside to attendees waiting in line to enter and again during the rally program. Also in attendance was Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman who told the crowd that, “Democrats want Republicans dead. And they’ve already started the…
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