This morning my husband mentioned that Trump would make a campaign stop in Everett, Washington, which is in our neck of the woods.  He wanted to go and I wanted to see for myself what was really going on at his rallies.  Being a former reporter, I was naturally curious.

Washington is a blue state.  It hasn’t voted for a Republican president since 1984.  Why did Trump come here?  Well, he made a promise to the state to return, and here he is.  He also made a prediction during the rally that he will win the state, but every politician I’ve come across has done that- make predictions that they will win.

A little explanation about our state.  It is still considered solidly blue and unwinnable for Donald J.  There is a political and cultural divide between eastern and western Washington.  Eastern Washington is more rural and conservative.  Western Washington, and King County, where Seattle is located, in particular is dominated by the left, so much so that conservatives are are ridiculed.  The growth of King County and the surrounding region population-wise has pushed the state solidly in the blue.  But the word surprise wouldn’t be in the dictionary if it didn’t exist.

Everett is not far from Seattle and influenced by its politics.  Speaking for myself, I felt a little ashamed waiting in line to attend a Trump rally, like I was attending something dirty, which most people think it is in this part of the state.  The woman behind me recognized a co-worker and said hello, then added, “I don’t think we should tell anyone at work that we were here.”

We arrived at XFINITY Arena at 6:15 pm.  I thought an hour would be enough time to get into the rally.  The rally started at 7 and there are usually speakers before the keynote address.  (We didn’t know it would be Rudy Giulliani, who I wouldn’t have minded seeing.)  We didn’t get inside the arena until about 8 o’clock, almost two hours after we got in line.  As we waited inside the arena, finally, to get through security, I saw the TSA badges on the uniforms.  That figures.  It took about two hours to get into the arena and about 15 minutes for us to get out, just like in an airport.

We saw Trump speak for about 15 minutes.  We saw more of the people in line than we saw of Trump.  The speech is available on your search engine of choice.  Here is what I saw while I was waiting in line, which doubled up over several city blocks.

• I didn’t see any violence from the people in line to attend the rally.  In fact, the line was pretty quiet.  Some people talked between themselves and once the rally started, some people turned on their smartphones to watch what was going on inside.  There was a few banter back and forth, but not much.

• I saw a sole white man waving a white flag with a medieval looking red cross.  I looked online to see if it is an Aryan symbol and found something similar, http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/hate-on-display/c/golden-state-solidarity.html#.V8cd12VEwxc, but this cross is black and the one I saw was red.

• I saw a black man selling Trump hats and proclaiming his support for the 2nd Amendment, telling the people in line, “We don’t call 911.”

• I saw one middle aged female with a sign supporting Hillary Clinton.

• I saw a group of people in the same car go around the block twice, once shouting, “Fu** Donald Trump,” the next time playing a very loud rap song singing the same.  The driver

• I saw a young white adult female walk past us with a sign that read, “Fu** Donald Trump.”

• I saw a black male walk past us and speak very loudly into his cell phone, “There are people of color standing in line for this guy!”

This was nothing, however, compared to the atmosphere as we neared the front of the arena. The area was cordoned off by police to separate the protesters from the attendees.  As I went through the strip between the police and protesters, the atmosphere was very different.  The line was still quiet, but now it was bombarded by angry protests.  No one in the line responded.  But the anger from the protesters was palpable.  I held Polina close and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.  I’m not exactly comfortable with people in uniforms and guns but in that instance, I was glad they were there.

Polina held up pretty well, considering we had spent the earlier part of the day at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, WA.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home but awoke during a call I made and didn’t go back to sleep.  Pete took her to Taco Time after the rally and now everyone is asleep, except me.

Here are some photos we took of the event.