I Got a Sunburned Nose for Kamala

Tuesday
It’s an ordinary Tuesday (this past one, in fact), and spouse Ron and I both get a text from the Harris-Walz campaign inviting us to a rally here in Grand Rapids on Friday. Obviously, we are on super-close personal texting terms with any number of people running for elected office. Aren’t you?

However, I am not a rally person. I do not like crowds. I get quietly anxious merely about the parking situation before any trip downtown. Even so, Ron and I are curious what these rally things are like. Should we go, just to see?

Why not? We click on the RSVP button and set the machinery in motion. By machinery, I mostly mean a fresh barrage of emails and texts.

Thursday
We have not yet heard when and where the rally will be. Friday between 9am and 12pm, but other than that, we are asked to stay tuned–they’ll tell us 24-12 hours before! Why they do this, I don’t know. Security measures? Waiting to see how many people sign up?

Thursday, 8:59 pm   
The texts and emails start appearing. The rally will be held at Riverside Park on the Grand River. They don’t say what time the actual program will begin. We can arrive as soon as 10 am and we must be there by 1 pm. So… we’re starting shortly after 1?

Thankfully, the emails contain organized and thorough instructions for where to park (thank you!), how to check in, what to wear (casual—merch welcome), and what you can and can’t bring “inside” (as you can imagine, very little).

Thursday, 9:30 pm
I am feeling anxious about the election, despite my usually successful efforts to talk myself down from some kind of doomsday ledge. So I wonder: will going to the rally make me feel better? Will I revel in the solidarity of like-minded masses? Will I cheer my way to confidence about the future of the Republic? What if hecklers show up—or … snipers? And how am I going to stay hydrated and fed for a whole day if I can’t bring anything in??

Friday, 11:15 am
We leave the house. Still a little worried about parking. Weather is perfect. I’ve packed a sandwich.

12:00
Parking is no problem (whew!). After finding a parking place on the street in the neighborhood around the park, we are now in a long line waiting to check in. People are mellow and polite. Mostly White folks, mostly middle-aged. We see a number of people we know. Ron remarks that this is nothing like the wild tailgate scene before a Michigan football game.

12:30
After passing a half dozen pro-Palestine protestors, then a series of low-key Kamala-merch vendors, we are approaching the check-in table. You have to show ID and your invitation on your phone.

12:40
Now we’re in line for security. At this point, we’re seeing more of the crowd, and noticing more people of color, more younger people. We stand for a while near a group of unionized construction workers, all in line together. Volunteers hand out free water bottles, which you have to finish before going inside. I eat my sandwich.

1:15
Now we’re through security. It was simple but thorough. You pass through a scanner, pockets and small bags emptied on a table for inspection, then a guard does the wand thing (“arms out like a plane, please”). Then you’re through. We note security people around, but their presence is understated. Grand Rapids police line the route here and there, a police boat patrols the river. I am disappointed there are no police dogs, but oh well.

Now we can hear the music from the speaker stack past security. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about the playlist. I don’t know the artists, because I am clueless.

Now we’re on a path lined by food trucks on one side and porta potties on the other. Not nearly enough potties for this crowd, I think. Plenty more free water for people to grab. Past this entry corridor, a dozen or more buses and gear trucks form a kind of enclosed area, within which is a stage and sets of bleachers to surround the stage. I note that everything is nestled in a stand of large trees and arranged to obscure any lines of sight from far distances—for security.

We find ourselves just outside the inner enclosed area—I learn later that people lined up by 6 am to get a seat in the inner sanctum—but we can see the proceedings on one of the screens set up for viewing. We have been standing or walking for over and hour and it’s clear there will be no sitting for the duration.

1:25
I’m in a long line for the porta potty, but it’s moving. I see a group of women, clearly teachers, with “education votes” t-shirts.

1:35
The screen comes alive with recorded ads. We hear a Black man’s voice explaining that Kamala Harris defends the middle class, while the other guy does not understand working people, etc. After this, a real live young woman appears on the stage. Her name is April and she is from Michigan. She tells her story—child of teachers and union workers, remembers 2016, and 2020, and has been working on political campaigns since elementary school. She urges us to “be a part of history.”

Kamala will bring “no drama mama energy” to the White House, Hillary continues. “We are not going back!” (The crowd loves this one, of course—we chant it briefly.) Next: a litany of issues we care about, importance of youth, we have to go forward, a call to action. Yay!

I’ve been wondering what these rallies are supposed to do. Obviously, part of the point is the theater of it. Videos run on the news, reporters cover these things, etc. But now I’m realizing that the purpose is actually to get local people doing campaign work on the ground. Those of us here are almost certainly already voting for these candidates, but politics is about the ground game. “We have 18 days! It’s going to be close!” We hear this over and over. And of course, this explains why the form we had filled out to register for the rally included a whole series of “will you volunteer?” questions.

1:50
Debbie Stabenow takes the stage, our Michigan Senator retiring after 23 years in the Senate. The messaging, I can see, is carefully planned and well-disciplined for all these speakers. We are talking about “kitchen table issues” with examples specific to Michigan—lots of stuff about unions, manufacturing jobs, medicare negotiation for drug prices, etc. We are praising the middle class. We are spending a certain amount of time critiquing (not mocking) Trump, with facts about his record—and how his decisions affected Michigan—and about the scary things he says now. We are hearing a lot about how under Trump, six auto plants closed in Michigan, though he promised none would. We are booing about his threats to get rid of “the enemy within.” We are well aware: he and his followers think that’s us!

Stabenow has quite a bit to say about a clean energy economy and how that will bring jobs to Michigan. And she names names: the price-gouging fossil fuel industry is behind the “puppet” Trump. We end with stuff about moving into the future and how Harris and Walz are going to “turn the page.”

2:05
Big Gretch! Ooo, the crowd loves Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer! Just behind her stands a phalanx of Democratic governors: from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland. They’re on the “Blue Wall Tour” together. But Gretch, like Hillary, emphasizes how crucial West Michigan is for this election: “This is Ground Zero,” she says.

Same themes as previous speakers, but Gretch is really on fire! This woman knows how to cheerlead, how to work a crowd. She gets the biggest cheer when she refers to her “Fix the D**n Roads” campaign slogan and works up to “You’re welcome!”

Lots of praise for Kamala and for Tim Walz—who of course understand Midwest values, which Gretch sums up as “work hard, tell the truth, and get sh** done!” Huge cheers, of course. She ends with a “hell yeah!” call and response thing. Whew!

Gretch gets the crowd about as rowdy as we get all day. There’s cheering and booing during every speech, but it’s all very civilized. As Ron observes, these are just ordinary people who care about democracy. That’s all. No one is a fanatic. No one worships these candidates. We’re just people, including the actual humans on the stage. This is both comforting and rather frightening, I suppose. We’re just a bunch of humans, trying to figure out how to manage life in a complex world.

2:35
After a brief break for more of the mysterious (to me) playlist, a local union carpenter gets up to the podium to tell his story of how Kamala rescued his union pension so he can retire with dignity. More about how DT never worked a real day in his life. More about the importance of clean energy jobs here in Michigan.

2:40
Here she is! Finally! Kamala takes the stage. Beyonce’s “Freedom” blasts through the speakers! (Yes, I know this one.) Waves, lots of waves from Kamala. Thank you’s galore. She seems warm and confident. She gets down to business, setting forth two visions for this country: focused on the future vs. focused on the past, investing in small businesses and the middle class vs. “the same old tired playbook,” and so on. More stuff about turning the page, and a “new and optimistic generation of leadership” right here on the stage—I admit, I feel a little thrill at that bit.

She is going through all her usual talking points, smoothly, masterfully, backed up with specifics, about her record and her plans—and her opponent’s lack thereof. A lot of stuff about an “opportunity economy,” dignity for all people, fighting for all Americans, more about the auto industry and clean energy jobs, a few minutes on Project 2025 and that dangerous Supreme Court immunity ruling.

I’m impressed with her emotional range as a speaker, all the way from serenely calm to righteously pissed off. She tells about caring for her elderly mother, describing empathetically what it takes to do that work and what it costs the family members who do it. This leads to her plan to have medicare cover elder care. Big cheers—clearly that one hits this crowd. At one point, she is talking about reproductive rights. She begins gently, warmly, saying no one has to give up their faith about this. Then she slowly builds to a crescendo: but we can all agree that these decisions about a woman’s body should not be made by the government! Big cheers.

It’s a great speech: polished but genuine, lively, full of specifics, connected to Michigan at all the right points. We end with a patriotic flourish about being here today because we love our country, and then the importance of urging our friends and neighbors to vote because “your vote is your voice.”

3:10
Done. We’re streaming back out, herded between two portable metal fences to funnel us all out the same way.

3:15
Oh dear. We’re stuck. They’re holding up the crowd to get the motorcade out. This will take a while. Everyone is patient and polite. I have been on my feet for almost four hours, but it’s a beautiful day. We’re admiring the light on the river and the magnificent mature trees in their fall foliage.

3:45
Ah. We’re out, walking back to our car.

3:56
There’s our car. All is well.

4:30
Home. So. Am I glad I went? Sure. Do I feel a little more solidarity with my local compatriots? A little. Do I feel less anxious? No, not really. So much is on the line in this election.

But there is something instructive about seeing these candidates in person, even if from a distance through a crowd. Watching politics through the media makes it all seem like theatrical fakery, like a pro wrestling match. But politics is ultimately about what really happens on the ground, not only in elections but in our lives.

So being there helped me ponder the real human beings involved in this whole endeavor—the candidates, the crowds, the volunteers and staff. Today, the whole democratic endeavor seemed simultaneously both frighteningly fragile and reassuringly solid. I’m grateful for the sanity and sense that prevailed. The word “rabid” describes nothing about this day. No one was there because of a personality cult, no one was some kind of fanatic. We’re all just people who care about democracy and want everyone–everyone–to be OK. And we are trying to figure it out.