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 be part of the fun.

If we’re going to a rally, we’re going to fully embrace the mood.

Several hours into our wait, the speakers connected to the Jumbotron outside the arena began playing Judy Collins’ version of Send in the Clowns, a Grammy winning cover of the classic tune from Stephen Sondheim’s musical A Little Night Music. It’s a beautiful and profound song—But as someone who is aware of Sondheim and Collins’ leftist politics and grew up in the sort of liberal home in which their music got played, the contrast between the song and my boisterous ruby red environment was rather incongruous.

And yet, after a bit of reflection it actually struck me as very appropriate. While Sondheim’s standard has been covered by hundreds of artists, most people don’t understand its meaning— and why it was arguably a perfect song for the moment.

“It's a song of regret and anger,” Sondheim said about his tale of a mistimed love affair. The clowns of the song aren’t circus clowns— the singer in the musical is a theater actress making a reference to the theater. “The show isn’t going well. . . let’s do the jokes,” as Sondheim described it. But at as the song later says—“Don’t bother, they’re here.”— or as Sondheim describes it:

“We are the fools.”

And it was true, and I mean this with great respect to my fellow attendees, but with sadness about what so much of America has become. Like the show of Sondheim’s reference, America is not doing very well— and in that sense my fellow rally-goers were the “clowns”or fools of modern America, because they are the only ones who still believe in the show at all.

These Trump supporters are in some way the last Americans— the sort of people who check “American” as their ethnic origin on the Census. Like “fools” they still believe in America’s promise— and that, in spite of everything that has happened, and everything that has been done to them and their country, that the American experiment can be reclaimed.

They believe wholeheartedly that we can Make America Great Again.

That was why they were here.

The attendees were mostly working and middle class— Some wore shirts with off-color references. They might, like Trump, be excessively blunt. Their family situation might not always be Ozzie and Harriet— but throughout its history, when America calls, these are the sorts of people who have always shown up. They believe in America and they love America deeply in their bones— not just with their voices.

Of course, the rally drew a diverse group of people including a number of my “professional” friends in the area— at one point, I was in line behind a retired finance professor at USC. But far more typical among the people I talked to were middle class and working class Americans who had driven from Eastern Washington (six hours) or Southern Wyoming (seven hours) because this was the closest place they could get to see Trump in our empty quarter of America. We ran into our frequent babysitter with her parents. They had driven five hours from their ranch in remote Eastern Montana.

Despite the utter lack of crowd control— there was embarrassingly little police presence— and a complete lack of updates to explain why the doors opened more than an hour and a half late, these men and women—some of whom looked “rough” behaved perfectly. Despite the fact that many had been waiting for hours and traveling for hours more and it was certain that thousands would not even be able to get inside the arena, everyone lined up in an orderly fashion. There was almost no cutting in line and no rowdy behavior.

The few complaints I heard as the wait rolled out were delivered in a good-natured way. Everyone was polite. Though the crowd was probably 95-98% white (It was a GOP event in a 90% white county, so this was not particularly surprising) there was no hint of ethnic identity politics in any of the conversations I had— rather it was a celebration of an America and a unironic patriotism that has disappeared from most venues in our country. In most places, there would have been frayed tempers as the wait dragged on for hours with no explanation. Instead these people, many of whom have seen their country “fundamentally transformed” —to quote Obama, and their core values as Americans challenged and upended, willingly endured with tremendous patience the long wait to see their fighter— their man in the arena.

All smiles as people waited for the rally

There was no shortage of MAGA hats among the crowd

The rally itself was held in the 2nd largest indoor arena in the Montana (they squeezed in about 10,000— well over capacity— by putting seating on the basketball court)— Another 8,000 or so who couldn’t make it in the arena itself watched on Jumbotrons outside.

Trump was Trump in all ways both good and imperfect. He entered to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA (the embedded video I took will give you some sense of the enthusiasm of the crowd).

He knows how to connect with his audience effortlessly and sincerely. He rambles and repeats himself, but most of the attendees didn’t care.

He gave some genuine appreciation of Montana’s natural beauty (He got to see a lot of it after having to drive 140 miles from Billings to get to the rally site when his plane made an emergency landing). He joked (accurately) about everything in Montana being “about two hours away” from wherever you happened to be. He was effective and ruthless in going after Jon Tester, the main target of the rally.

Tim Sheehy, the businessman and former Navy SEAL whom I think will defeat Tester in Montana’s Senate race, was polished in his presentation. Trump had come not because Montana is in play, but to put Sheehy over the top in the Senate race. He handled all of the local dignitaries like a pro.

All in all, despite the long wait, my son and I were both very glad that we went.

Here in flyover country— these were the people who put food on the table, who haul things back and forth, who fight in our wars— they are the people who have kept America itself together. They are perhaps “fools” for being the only Americans still trying to play by the rules of the game.

Meanwhile, in many of our cities, the basic rules of fair play have vanished entirely, I tried to imagine concertgoers at an urban— or even a suburban— concert behaving themselves in this way while waiting for hours, and the very idea was laughable. The entire mood, with its retro music and even more retro demographics, was certainly a far cry from the Harris campaign’s twerktacular in Atlanta with Megan Thee Stallion about ten days earlier.

Trump Looking on as U.S. Senate Candidate Tim Sheehy spoke

So perhaps I was here with my fellow fools, but at least, while the country crumbles around us, we were all momentarily enjoying ourselves in our foolishness.

Or as the Bible says:

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (1 Conrinthians 3:18-20)

Maybe what America needs are “fools” like these.

So send in the clowns. We could use a lot more of them.