Donald Trump held a campaign event in North Carolina on Tuesday night and bragged about the packed crowd, all while defying the state’s mask order.
“We said let’s keep it down,” Trump said of his crowd of supporters, many not wearing masks. “They didn’t do too good a job, but that’s good, right?”
He added, “These crowds, it’s beyond what he had in terms of enthusiasm, beyond what he had four years ago in 2016.”
Trump begins his rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina by bragging about how packed the crowd is during a pandemic pic.twitter.com/JIkwnThP84
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2020
Trump took it a step further by calling public health guidelines in many states, including North Carolina, a conspiracy meant to sink his reelection campaign.
“It’s a shame what’s going on,” Trump said. “On Nov. 4, every one of those states will be open. They’re doing it for political reasons.”
Even with coronavirus cases rising in a number of states, Trump calls for all Democratic governors to fully reopen their schools and economies. He also suggests public health measures are part of a political conspiracy against him. pic.twitter.com/asXJa1qjsQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 8, 2020
Meanwhile, North Carolina is still suffering through the pandemic
While Donald Trump applauds his supporters for packing into a campaign rally – many of them not wearing masks – North Carolina is still suffering through a pandemic this president failed to control from day one.
As CNN reported, “Whether the situation on the ground there helps him is an open question; the state still has a mask requirement in place, and many businesses — including bars and movie theaters — remain closed.”
Donald Trump is hoping his defiance of health guidelines and rosy rhetoric about the pandemic will help turn the tide for his struggling reelection campaign, but his behavior – and that of his supporters – is the reason this pandemic became so out of control in the first place.
The MAGA campaign event in North Carolina on Tuesday night was more evidence that Trump supporters care more about worshiping their dear leader than they do about protecting public health, even their own.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.