President Trump spoke to a crowd of 12,000 people on Sunday, Nov. 4, in Chattanooga. The president came to endorse Tennessee Republican Candidate Marsha Blackburn, who will be leaving her seat in the House and running for Senate against Democratic Candidate Phil Bredesen.
Crowds gathered as early as Saturday afternoon outside of the McKenzie Arena on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s campus in anticipation for the speakers to arrive. Supporters of the president waited in line for hours to hear him speak.
“Your next senator, Marsha Blackburn, will keep your economy thriving, your wages rising, your jobs soaring, and she will keep your families and communities safe,” Trump said.
But, the event wasn’t only about what was happening inside the arena. Outside, Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters rallied in the streets of Chattanooga with signs and high emotions towards the current presidential administration. Streets alongside the McKenzie Arena were blocked off, where policemen stood guarding the middle to help regulate a peaceful protest amongst both liberals and conservatives.
After the arena was filled to maximum capacity, some supporters were left outside, although many of them had tickets. Some stayed and watched the livestream of the event, while others decided to join the protests.
Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters were quite vocal in their response to the rally. Whitney Tootheman and Michelle Kitzler came to protest the Trump rally, simply hoping to be heard.
“All of the hate I’m seeing….I hope just to bring awareness and say my peace,” said Tootheman, while holding up a sign that read “White Silence= Violence.”
“I love this country and it saddens me to see the division…..White silence does equal violence,” Kitzler said.
Her suggested remedy to the division was ensuring that the media is held accountable and that it is cleaned up “fact to fact.”
“As long as there’s time to run it back to back, people believe it,” Kitzler said.
Anti-Trump protesters represented a wide pool of various demographics, from senior citizens, to those who identify as LGBTQ, to high school and college students.
Liam Wheeler, a 20-year-old college student attending Lee University, brought along a small group of members of his Christian Activist Movement to protest Trump and his supporters.
“As a Christian I really do think that it’s our responsibility to stand up for the oppressed and marginalized,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler wanted to also speak out against stereotypes regarding Evangelical Christians.
“We’re trying to, you know, show that not all Evangelical Christians are, you know, Trump supporters. We want to represent the true values of Christ and Christianity,” Wheeler said.
Many, like Andrew Kingsolver, 23, came to the rally not out of support, but out of sheer curiosity.
“I didn’t vote for him [Trump],” Kingsolver said. “I voted independent in the election, but I thought it was an opportunity to listen to a sitting president, so I thought that’d be interesting; unfortunately, I didn’t get in.”
Although he is a registered Republican, Kingsolver believes that a middle ground needs to be met in the political sphere. He expressed a neutral perspective on the political divide.
“I’m neutral, but I feel like we’re getting to a point where there are two sides and no one wants to meet in the middle,” Kingsolver said. “I feel like instead of yelling at each other from other sides of the street, if we had an opportunity to sit at a table, we’d find common ground.”
Although many Trump supporters back up the president’s philosophy on immigration, Kingsolver expressed that he does not support this belief, particularly because of his family history.
“My grandmother was an immigrant, she came from Germany,” Kingsolver said.
On the other end of the spectrum were Trump supporters who rallied directly across from the protesters.
Roger Davenport, 53, expressed his disagreeance for hatred and yelling back and forth from one side to another.
“I’ve gotten tired of the Democrats saying they’re gonna do things and the Republicans say that there gonna do things. And then they get to Washington, and nothing gets done,” Davenport said.
Davenport argues that Trump, being a representative of the Republican Party, has followed through on the promises he made during his campaign.
“Who do the Democrats say they support and represent? The working class, Blacks, Hispanics, women; so he [Trump] says ‘Since I’ve been in office, we have the lowest Black unemployment, lowest Hispanic unemployment, lowest female unemployment in 63 years and the lowest unemployment as a nation in 18 years,’” Davenport said.
Davenport’s concluding statement in response to the political uproar is fairly congruent with Tootheman’s suggestion to our country’s divide.
“I think more dialogue, I think if the media was more honest, and more mainstream media,” Davenport said.
Though there is a large number of opposing political perspectives, one thing liberals and conservatives seem to agree on is the need to spark more conversation betweening rival views and holding the media responsible, while encouraging truth and transparency.
Image credit: Julia Scriven and Kiaya Robertson