(Florence) After attending 40 Donald Trump rallies, Jonathan Riches is absolutely convinced that the last American presidential election was “stolen” from its champion.
Posted at 4:12 p.m.
A conviction shared by the thousands of others who, like him, waited for hours on Saturday in a dusty Arizona field to attend a speech by the ex-president, despite the wishes of the leaders of the Republican Party. to leave 2020 behind them to better focus on the mid-term legislative elections scheduled for November.
“We love our president – I call him President Trump because I still think he’s my president,” said Mr. Riches, 44, before the Republican billionaire arrived on the scene of this public meeting.
PHOTO ROSS D. FRANKLIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former President Donald Trump at his Saturday night rally
In this small town of Florence, about 100 km from Phoenix, some have come from very far and several days in advance – Jonathan Riches from Florida, 3500 km away -, enjoying a fair atmosphere with friends flocking from all over the country like Jennifer Winterbauer, from Texas.
“Everyone here is part of the family,” she says.
The speakers of the rally broadcast the usual leitmotifs of Trumpism: President Joe Biden would be “disturbed”, the media “phony”, the borders supposedly “open”… but above all, the November 2020 election marred by “fraud”.
“Rotten to the core”
The highest-ranking Republicans, however, are trying to break away from this narrative hammered out for more than a year by the ex-president.
Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, this week came to the aid of one of his colleagues, Mike Rounds, who had admitted the defeat of the real estate magnate.
“I agree with him,” said on CNN the influential senator who is trying to refocus his party’s attention on the record of Joe Biden whose first year in office was made difficult by COVID-19 , inflation and infighting among Democrats.
But Donald Trump’s grip on the party base does not make his job any easier.
PHOTO ROSS D. FRANKLIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A poll this month indicated that about 40% of Americans believed the election had been compromised.
“We have to react to 2020,” insists Jennifer Winterbauer, 49. Otherwise “we will have the same problem”.
For her, “it’s like Trump says, when you rob a bank, you get caught. You can’t keep the money or get away with it.”
On stage, the speakers follow one another and harp on conspiracy theories about this alleged presidential fraud, which no evidence has so far come to support.
“This election was rotten to the core,” said House of Representatives Paul Gosar, for example.
And when Donald Trump himself finally spoke, he pitted the “smart” and “strong” people – who endorse his baseless claims – against the “awful” and “weak” ones.
“If we really pay attention to the facts, to the various audits, to the various information, we see very clearly” that the ballot was not “legitimate”, abounds Will Garrity, who came from Houston, Texas, while the multiple independent analyzes and legal inquiries have all confirmed the validity of Joe Biden’s victory
A poll this month indicated that about 40% of Americans believed the election had been compromised.
“If we continue to look back and tell our people not to vote because there is fraud, then we are creating a huge disadvantage,” explained Senator Mike Rounds on ABC News.