Under the spell of the crowd

For three hours on Sunday afternoon, I stood on a block of midtown Manhattan — 33rd Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues — surrounded by thousands of Donald Trump supporters. About every half hour, the herd shuffled forward 15 to 20 feet before the police barriers closed in front of them. Whenever we moved, a chant of “USA!” The whole time, snipers were sitting on the roofs of high-rise buildings a few hundred meters away, and two drones were hovering above them. A friend had bought two tickets, but we learned from the start that the tickets were not checked – they were It was a campaign ploy to grab fundraising emails. As the sun approached the Hudson River and the glittering fall day cooled, the clock ran faster than us.

I've been to Trump crowds before, but never to New York City. The usual dirty and dreary area around Penn Station was filled with political crowds wearing an unusual amount of red for a city that dresses darkly. Because it was New York, there were many more black and brown people and many more Orthodox Jews than you would see at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. An occupying force of distinctive locals had taken over the street. My disorientation increased throughout the afternoon.

No one had more than six inches of personal space. It would take a great effort of will to get out of the side of the crowd and climb over metal barriers to take a bathroom break or drink a cup of coffee. We were stuck. There was nothing to do except chat.

Next to me stood a serious-looking man in his 20s, holding a tiny American flag. He said he worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a world-famous, Progressive Orthodox cultural institution, where his politics made him a lone dissident. One in about three? No, he said – there were secret comrades in the camp. I asked if he believed the country could come together after the election, regardless of the outcome. His answer – that Trump had the support of an overwhelming majority of Americans, more than enough to clean up the mess, and that only Democrats were guilty of demonizing their opponents because Republicans only said what was true – sounded like a no.

An hour later and 100 feet away, I stood next to Richard and Jason, Trinidadian-born men in MAGA hats who live near me in Brooklyn. They supported Trump because of high prices—a dozen eggs for $6—and lack of international respect; Also, The apprentice. Richard was confident that Trump would win in a landslide and even conquer deep blue New York City. (There's a lot of secret Trump support in Flatbush, he confessed.) When I asked him whether he would accept a result that went against his candidate, Richard simply repeated: Trump in a landslide. I almost believed him, because the street had become an echo chamber – not a virtual one, but a physical one – and I began to understand the power of the crowd over the mind. As the afternoon wore on, it became increasingly difficult to hold on to the idea that all of these thousands of people were wrong.

Around 3 p.m.—after two hours of standing and no progress for at least 45 minutes—my lower back was throbbing. It became clear that we would never cross 7th Avenue and reach the promised land of Madison Square Garden, and I began to imagine a stampede. If it had been a normal traffic jam in Manhattan, the honking of cars would have been deafening. But the crowd remained shockingly patient and friendly and, in the American way, became friends immediately. Organizers at a local betting market threw out red T-shirts that gave Trump a 57 percent chance of winning, and Richard, Jason and my other neighbors shouted, “Bet on Trump!” Bet on Trump!” A near-perfect one barked on the sidewalk Kim Jong Un impersonator: “No to democracy!” Yes to autocracy! That’s why I support Donald J. Trump!” and everyone laughed. Being fellow Americans, New Yorkers, or even Yankee fans together wouldn't have been enough to keep things from getting ugly. Today, in the week leading up to Election Day, only one political tribe — the Fellowship of Trump on 33rd Street — is creating such solidarity.

Shortly before 4 p.m. we hadn't moved in for over an hour. With that stillness in the heart of New York City, the crowd froze in a single thought, and the thought became reality – it was as if Trump had somehow already won. Sandwiched between the men of Flatbush and a metal barricade, I lived in Trump's America. The smiles and laughter, the cheerful bursts of chanting, the helpful cries of “chair coming through, wheelchair coming” – all these signs of happiness were based on a mass delusion that had everyone in its grip. It was entirely possible that the unanimous opinion of all those thousands of people was wrong. And if I stayed here any longer, I too might fall under the spell, like a lost climber who sits down in the snow to rest for a few minutes and never gets up again. I squeezed along the sidewalk until I found a gap in the barricades and slipped out.

That's why I, along with 10,000 or 20,000 others, missed the big show at Madison Square Garden. I missed the racist jokes and vulgar insults and profanities directed at Puerto Ricans and other Latinos; against Jews, Palestinians, women, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and the half of Americans who support the Democrats. I missed the gross nativism, the spread of conspiracy theories, the warnings of violence and revenge. I missed the frauds and nepos, the opportunists and fanatics, the heirs of Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin, the fascist wannabes who don't quite have what it takes – the dark mirror of the goodwill outside. I didn't see what the hateful extravagance would have done to my neighbors in the crowd on 33rd Street. And I went home wondering how a spell could ever be broken.