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Anti-Trump Rally: 6 p.m. Report
About 200 people rallying in the Free Speech Zone at 5.30 p.m. Happy to see the second shift show up outside the Tsongas. After 45 minutes, frostbite was setting in, so I gladly handed off my piece of the stand-out to the next group. Thousands upon thousands in line from the arena doors all down John Cox Circle and wrapping around the post office. Pretty orderly. Some shouting back at the demonstrators, but nothing nasty. Typical political give-and-take. Twenty reporters and camera people swarmed the first group of demonstrators, interviewing and photographing every person they could pull in. Then the media headed inside. Good signs in the demo crowd: Dump Trump, No H8, Shut Up Donald, Black Lives Matter, and more. Chants of “No hate in our state,” “Be nice,” “Massachusetts’s not for sale,” and the like. Lots of students, some Boston area folks with signs and a flag, Lowell artists with bright posters, UMass faculty and staff, community activists, everybody cold cold cold…..but hot with resistance to DT….
I watched Trump’s entire speech streamed live on YouTube. All I’ll say is that it’s an interesting phenomenon.
It reminded me of WWF.
Another interesting phenomenon was that during the prep time and the actual event police calls were way down! I was listening to the police scanner during this time. LPD was using Ch 1 (the normal dispatch channel) for event coverage and Ch 2 for normal calls. Ch 2 was extraordinarily quiet during the entire time. Even fire and ambulance calls seemed to be below normal during this time. Not sure what to make of it–maybe all the whackos and weirdos who normally produce the actions that police/fire/EMTs would handle were inside revving up the chief whacko of all?