Send in the Clowns

Reflections on Attending the Trump Rally in Montana

Regardless of the candidate or cause, I’m not really a fan of political rallies.

Any big crowd, with its waving signs, descends too much into mindlessness for my taste.

Any group shouting slogans reminds me of the multitude in the Bible shouting “Give us Barabbas!”

And yet, I made an exception when Donald Trump decided to rally in my Montana hometown— I had been proud to serve in a senior role in his administration of course, but more importantly, I thought of it not really as a political rally but more of a cultural event— or maybe like an appearance of the circus in town. And thus I found myself in a Bozeman, Montana parking lot at 11:30 A.M. with one of my sons, in line for a rally that wouldn’t even begin until 6:00 P.M., and for which the star attraction would ultimately not take the stage until 9:30 P.M. And indeed the wait turned out to b…