'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump

GREENSBORO, N.C. — They came seeking Donald Trump, the keeper of their American dreams.

They came hoping Trump could do something to help their children. Or that he would hear them and respond in some way. Or maybe they would just come away with a T-shirt to remember him by.

Shannon Ward pulled out her cell phone and began filming as she and her friend entered a labyrinthine maze of bike-racks arranged to funnel attendees to the entrance of the Greensboro Coliseum where Trump would be speaking just a few hours later on Tuesday evening.

“I can’t wait to see him,” said Ward, who lives in nearby Pleasant Garden. “It’s wild seeing the president or someone who might become the president. I’m almost 43 years old, and I’ve never done that.”

She was temporarily taken aback by one of the vendors making a sales pitch with the words Trump mouthed after surviving an assassination attempt three months ago in Butler, Pa.: “Fight, fight, fight.”

“What — no,” Ward protested as she filmed. “Peace, love and equality.”

Ward didn’t vote in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Now, she’s registered, she said, and her vote will be going to Trump.

What she’s seeking in a second Trump presidency is more than just vibes, though.

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She has two special-needs children, and the Medicaid benefits they receive aren’t sufficient to provide for their care.

“It would be great to get them the help they need, and not have to go through the red tape,” Ward said.

She said she hopes Trump will do something to help.

Asked if she’s heard Trump say anything that gives any indication he’s inclined to take action, Ward paused for a moment to think about it.

Then she said recalled Trump say that the government “needs to do a better job on mental health.” It was something along the lines of, “Why wait for a tragedy when you can do something to prevent it?”

Darien Williams, a 23-year-old Black man from Graham, is also a recent convert. Williams came to the rally with his neighbor, 19-year-old Michael Strothman, who is white.

Williams sat out the 2020 election, but his mother voted for Democrat Joe Biden. Williams’ interest in cryptocurrency provided him with an entry point into the Trump movement. (In 2019, Trump said crypto’s “value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” but he reversed himself this year by pledging to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and launching his own digital currency project.

“He relates to my values,” Williams said of Trump. “I’m big into the digital banking industry He’s about innovation. That makes a difference to our generation, which is Generation Z.

“Usually, I don’t come out in person to vote, but with Trump I can take that chance,” Williams added.

There is an aspect of attending Trump rallies that is akin to a pilgrimage, Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Dartmouth College, told Raw Story.

“They think he’s going to look out for their interests, although everything I know about Trump suggests otherwise,” Balmer said. “He’s going to look out for himself first. He’s a salesman.”

‘Trump chosen by God’

The warren of metal barricades in the parking lot at the Greensboro Coliseum deposited rallygoers in front of a pen fashioned out of bike racks, where members of the pro-Trump religious group Rod of Iron Ministries hyped the crowd. A banner flanking one side of the pen depicted Trump raising his fist at Butler, accompanied by the text, “Trump strong. Trump chosen by God.”

Two men danced inside the pen to a hip-hop track and occasionally fist-bumped Trump supporters filing past, while a woman wearing a red MAGA hat paced the perimeter, repeating, “Everybody needs to vote. If we don’t vote, we don’t win.”

- YouTubeA contingent of Trump supporters with Rod of Iron Ministries hypes Trump supporters at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. on Oct. 22, 2024.

Rod of Iron Ministries is a sect led by the Rev. Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon that splintered from the Unification Church, led by Sean’s late father Sun Myung Moon. Adherents, known as Moonies, believe that Sun Myung Moon is the messiah.

Under Sean Moon’s leadership, Rod of Iron Ministries incorporated AR-15 assault rifles into their worship and explicitly aligns with Trump. The group recently held a festival in rural northeastern Pennsylvania that featured several former Trump officials, including retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, Tom Homan and Sebastian Gorka.

The crass commercialism of the vendors hawking Trump merch blended seamlessly with Rod of Iron Ministries’ religious pageantry. The Rod of Iron Ministries contingent waved a giant flag depicting Trump as Rambo, a staple of the vendor tents. They held a sign reading, “Fight, fight, fight,” echoing the pitch of the vendor working the line.

Another vendor, among a trio of men marketing anti-Kamala misogyny, serenaded the rallygoers to pitch his product.

“You gotta say no to the ho,” he sang in a smooth baritone while displaying his T-shirts. “Because that ho is just as bad as Joe. You gotta say no to the ho. I take cash, card and Venmo.”

Later, one of the foreign visitors in the Rod of Iron Ministries contingent caught the spirit and proclaimed as he strolled through the parking lot: “I say no to the ho!”

Ted O’Grady, a Rod of Iron Ministries member from Boston, had driven the Japanese visitors to Greensboro, and would be transporting them to Georgia for another Trump rally on Wednesday. Sean Moon would join them there.

Wearing a hat displaying the iconic image of Trump in Butler with the word “Fight” and a T-shirt reading, “Jesus is king,” O’Grady shook hands with a rallygoer in the line, saying, “We need revival.”

O’Grady said he does not worship Trump. But when asked why he believes Trump is chosen by God, O’Grady replied, “I think he has a certain providence for America to shift.”

He added that he doesn’t believe that Democrats are evil, notwithstanding some of the rhetoric by both Rod of Iron Ministries and the Trump campaign.

Then, O’Grady turned the tables, arguing that it’s Trump supporters who have been demonized by the left.

He complained that comparisons between Trump’s upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City and a 1939 Nazi rally are “incendiary,” despite the fact that Trump has used overtly fascist language such as calling his political opponents “vermin” and claiming that immigration is “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“There are good people here,” O’Grady said. “They feel demonized. They feel that Christianity is under attack. By the way, transgender surgery is banned in Russia.

“White people are inherently racist — what do you even do with that?” he continued. “That’s a nullification argument. We should be able to have a discussion.”

Balmer told Raw Story that in addition to appealing to a sense of grievance among evangelical voters, Trump invokes what he called “the false God of American civil religion” that “invests the nation with supernatural characteristics.” These appeals pose a danger, Balmer said, not only to the “integrity of the faith” but also in promoting a kind of blind patriotism that is uncritical.

But even O’Grady said his support for Trump is not unconditional.

“A lot of the patriot side believes Trump — I don’t like to say ‘far-right’ — but they believe Trump has thrown them under the bus,” he said. “I don’t want to say he’s betrayed us; I just hope and pray he’s being guided by God.”

O’Grady expressed support for Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Fuentes dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, but shortly after the Republican National Convention picked a fight with the Trump campaign in an as-yet unsuccessful bid to impose ideological purity.

O’Grady mentioned Fuentes in the context of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unrelenting military assault on Gaza. But rather than focus his criticism on the Israeli government, O’Grady endorsed Fuentes’ anti-Jewish hate.

“I think he’s bringing up a good point about overwhelming Jewish power,” O’Grady said of Fuentes. “It has to be mitigated.” (Sean Moon also has a history of antisemitic statements.)

‘Keep Trump with you’

By 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the Greensboro Coliseum had reached capacity. About 25 supporters lingered around the venue’s southeast corner, eying a restricted area of the parking lot where they hoped to spot Trump emerging from his motorcade.

“Get your keychain, y’all,” one of the vendors announced. “Keep Trump with you.”

By then, Shannon Ward and her friend had already left.

Ward said they hadn’t been able to see anything inside except the Jumbotron, and if she was going to watch the event on screen she could just as easily do that at home. But she wasn’t disappointed.

“We got souvenirs,” she said, nodding towards a folded T-shirt tucked under her arm.

Vanesa Conde and her husband, Jesus, had arrived too late to get inside, but they waited on the sidewalk, hoping for the opportunity to speak with Trump when he came out.

Vanesa, an immigrant from Colombia, will take the oath of citizenship next week.

“My first vote will be for Trump,” she said.

She said she’s supporting Trump because he “saves America for the future.”

The future that needs saving, she said, includes “the kids, the pets and the economy.” While alluding to Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs with her mention of “pets,” Conde said the economy is the top issue for her.

“Four years ago, I pay 99 cents for the eggs; now, I have to pay five dollars,” she said. “It’s no fair. The economy right now is trash.”

Despite widespread complaints among voters about high prices, the United States leads developed countries in economic growth, unemployment remains relatively low, inflation has stabilized, and a long-predicted recession has been averted.

Jesus, a former truck driver wearing a white plastic cowboy hat with the words “Make America Great Again,” lamented that if he had been able to get off work an hour earlier, he would have parked his rig at the coliseum. He had wanted Trump to see a sign he painted that reads: “What would you do for the trucking community?”

Jesus said he never considered voting for Harris, having concluded that Trump was the better candidate from a financial standpoint.

Jesus grew up in the Mexican state of Sonora, just across the border from Yuma, Ariz. He came to the United States with his family at the age of 10 and became a naturalized citizen at the age of 15. He’s lived in Greensboro since 2000.

He said he doesn’t agree with Trump on all of his policies on immigration and the border.

The topic that Jesus kept coming back to was trucking. He repeatedly said during an interview that he wants to ask Trump what he can do to help. He wants any reporter with access to Trump to ask the question.

“If he helps the trucking community, he’s got this election in the bag,” Jesus said.

Jesus drove a truck for six years, including hauling shipments of Mt. Olive Pickles, based in eastern North Carolina, across the country. But then the cost of diesel went up. Freight rates went down. Regulations limiting driving hours made it impossible for him to complete his trips on time. He complained about the county taxing his rig as an asset. Eventually, he had to give up truck-driving because he wasn’t making enough money.

“I miss truck -driving,” he said. “Truck-driving is freedom. For me, it’s my American dream.”

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