Inside a joyous Trump rally

 Tim Carney:

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 I took in the beaming faces of the coal miners Doug and Josh in the bleachers to my left, the cheers of truck driver Scott Dilling standing next to me, the laughter of grandmothers, grandfathers, and the envelope-factory workers. Suddenly the moment was something else.

Part rock concert, part playoff game, the Trump rally in a tiny airport in a tiny town in Central Pa. — especially in the moments around Trump’s entrance—was exuberant.

“Fortunate Son” was the perfect celebratory song for the crowd. The coal miners, truck drivers, immigrants, blue-collar parents trying to raise a family, the landscapers — yes, mostly white, but also black, Hispanic, and Asian, including immigrants — were belting out with heartfelt sincerity “Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand, Lord, don't they help themselves, y'all… It ain't me... I ain't no fortunate son.”

Then Marine One landed, and a new song blared out the lyrics

I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through…
We are the champions, my friends

The Central Pa. crowd sang along with this song, as a welcoming song of the president. The farmers, coal miners, gun-owners, bikers, have had their share of sand kicked in their face, but for now they feel like they’re winners. And it’s because of Trump.

Tim Carney the moralist was thinking about how perverse it was that these people were celebrating Trump. The 20-something suburban mom behind me was really 100-percent behind the “grab-em-by-the-p***y” guy? Are none of these people bothered by shifting farmers’ income from market income to subsidy income? What about his bad tweets?

Were these people really just celebrating that their guy—the guy who stands up for coal miners, for the “poorly educated,” for gun-owners—had his hand on the levers of power and was using them to entertain them?

Then I recalled all the other institutions that we might expect to be apolitical, or to avoid taking sides in the culture war. YouTube is currently trying desperately to lead people away from the videos of Biden calling for a ban on fracking. Facebook and Twitter tried to cut off access to New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s influence peddling. Our federal law enforcement agencies spied on Trump’s 2016 campaign. Our major media have stopped pretending they’re not partisan actors.

Trump’s fly-by was simply a turning of the tables, it seemed, as Queen blared. It was the people who had been crapped on for years by both parties, by the media, and by academia, getting to be the champions. As Trump would later put it in the rally, "rule of the people" was, for now at least, triumphing over the "rule of the corrupt political class."

Was it bizarre that the working-class and rural folks around me would find “their guy” in a golden mansion atop a tower on Fifth Avenue? Sure. But what he says, and whose side he's on is what matters. That's what the Democrats say every election, right? Whose side are you on?

“He’s for our jobs,” Josh the coal miner said after the rally. Biden's against them. There's no reason to get more nuanced. Some people are for us. Some are against us. The elites against us use their power to get more power and make us look bad. (Remember Katie Couric's dishonest attack on gun owners?) Trump's for us.

Trump, as he walked the runway to the stage threw Red MAGA hats to the crowd. "Let's Go!!!!!" one young man behind me cheers as if his quarterback were taking the field. Trump embraced the crowd that otherwise is attacked by politicians.

Trump badmouthed Gov. Tom Wolf as the "governor who doesn't want you to do anything." This wasn't an exaggeration. Trump was talking about open schools, open churches, fracking, and coal mining -- all things Wolf has opposed or somehow impeded, and all the things that define daily life for so much of the crowd. Tom Wolf clearly just wishes you all would stop living the way you do, with your coal-smeared work uniforms, your churchiness, your hunting. Trump celebrates all those things.

Politicians--Republican and Democrat--have all been having fun, getting rich, flexing muscle, often to the detriment of the type of people in Blair County. Now they had their guy, riding in on a military chopper. They were going to have fun.

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What every one of these people knows and feels in their bones is that the Democrats do not really care about them.  They care more about windmills and solar panels than the people who actually produce real energy.   What they also know is that Trump cares about them and their jobs.  Democrats are willing to sacrifice these people on the altar of "climate change" and Trump is trying to stop the carnage.  Trump is doing it like a rock star and these people appreciate it.