Donald Trump Jr. holds rally in Macon as GOP, Democrats focus on Georgia
An hour or two before the president’s namesake son wheeled into downtown Macon for a campaign speech Friday, cops blocked off a stretch of Plum Street between Second and Third streets.
Meanwhile, just down Plum from Elite Flooring, the Emerson Ballroom — which in the late 1800s served as a livery — was being readied for the arrival of Donald Trump Jr.
Standing next to a BMW X5, a woman in a “Bulgarians For Trump” T-shirt explained how she had taken her kids to the president’s airport rally here a week ago.
She said they were turned away when the gates closed just as they arrived.
So she returned from the Atlanta area on Friday for the next best thing, the president’s son, yes?
“Uhhh, no,” she said, a quizzical look on her face, “I’m here to see my president, Donald Trump.”
Informed that Friday’s headliner was, in fact, Trump Jr., she seemed undeterred. “OK, sounds good to me. ... Doesn’t matter who.”
Rally attendee Joe Bischone, of Macon, sporting a sheer red-white-and-blue T-shirt with a giant eagle’s head on it, had by then already made his way inside.
Bischone, 58, owns Tropical Smoothie Cafe on the city’s north side. Business has been tough, he said, “with the Democrats trying to keep everything closed.”
He added, “We don’t need politicians in there. We need real people.”
Bischone, originally from New York City, said he hopes that in 2024 Don Jr. will run for president. ”And then,” he said, “after him, his sister, and after (her), Barron.”
Presidential visits
Macon has occasionally hosted campaign visits from presidential namesakes.
Jimmy Carter’s son, James Earl “Chip” Carter III — the former husband of a Wesleyan grad and the father of James Earl Carter IV — dropped by in early 1984.
He had come to stump for Walter Mondale’s ultimately unsuccessful bid for the White House.
Accompanying him were then-Lt. Gov. Zell Miller and Mondale’s wife, Joan, who after a 45-minute appearance at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, headed for the airport in a green Buick, telling a reporter on the ride, “This country can’t stand four more years of Ronald Reagan.”
Friday’s Trump gathering was originally set for a meeting hall in Unionville, one of the city’s largest Black communities. But it was moved to the ballroom venue downtown.
The strategy behind a Macon visit
Chris Grant, a political science professor at Mercer University, said the last-minute Trump push here was likely aimed at Black males, with whom the president has had some success connecting at the polls.
“(Trump Jr.) could be going to (Republican-friendly) Houston County just as easily,” Grant said.
But instead Don Jr. came to neighboring Bibb County, where two-thirds of the population in Macon proper is Black.
Though Hillary Clinton won 59% of the vote in Bibb County four years ago, Grant said the Trump campaign may be looking to make gains by “micro-targeting” Black voters.
While only a handful of the 200-plus rally-goers on Friday were Black, Grant said the campaign was focusing on the area’s television-news market. Cameras from every local station were there.
As supporters filed in, a security team checked their pockets and purses.
Many in attendance had been cautioned in a “guest instructions” email not to bring, among other items, coolers, drones, mace or, the email added, “appliances (i.e. Toasters).”
The instructions also mentioned that facial coverings would be provided and guests were asked to “please wear your mask for the duration of the event.”
Most people didn’t wear them, though no one seemed to have brought toasters.
Before going in, Carol Billingsley, of McDonough, was decked out in a “Trump 2020: He Is My President” hat. She figured long-red Georgia could be crucial for Trump.
She appreciated Trump Jr. spreading his father’s message here.
”I think a lot of education and awareness needs to happen for people to really wake up to what’s happening in our country,” she said. “I feel like they’re speaking the truth, and I like it.”
Spreading the message
When it came time Trump Jr. to take the stage, he strode in to throbbing rock music.
“What’s going on, Macon! How we doing?” he asked. “We gonna win big?”
Yeahhh, came the reply.
”That’s what I like to hear,” he said. “It’s great to be in Georgia. I just did an event down in Atlanta. Incredible crowd there as well. Yeah, if this was a (Joe) Biden rally there’d one person. ... One person in a circle.”
Trump Jr.’s podium, flanked by U.S. and Georgia flags, was centered in a setting straight out of modern-political-campaign high church — a made-for-TV moment. Its mark: the region’s undecided eyeballs.
The president’s son stuck to familiar talking points, scorching the Democrat Biden as someone who “makes Hillary Clinton look like an honest individual” and a man who “helped build China.”
Trump Jr. went on to tout his father’s Middle East peace efforts and later said, “Donald Trump puts America first.”
All told, Trump Jr., who turns 43 on the last day of December, spoke for half an hour.
Amiable, upbeat, on-message and not-so-politically correct, he said his father hadn’t needed the job as president, but that five years ago he grew tired of watching from the sidelines as “these incompetents” made “decision after decision that destroyed so many lives in America.”
“He said, ‘You know what? I have to do something about it.’ ... He said, ‘I’ve gotta man up and get in the game,’” Trump Jr. went on.
“I want to specify, I think in Georgia I can still say ‘man up,’ right?”
The crowd cheered.
“I want to be sure,” Trump Jr. said. “I don’t want get canceled for not listing the other 979 genders.”
Before heading off to sign autographs and work the room, he said, “We need you calling your friends. Whether it’s in Georgia or anywhere else.”
This story was originally published October 24, 2020 at 7:00 AM.