“As Republicans, we are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The surprising comment came from a mother of five and grandmother of two, Vikki Westbrook, as she stood in line outside an airplane hangar in rural North Carolina on Sunday. She had come to hear Donald Trump deliver one of his final speeches during the 2024 presidential election.
Westbrook, 55, wasn’t entirely joking with her “locked and loaded” comment. She wasn’t entirely frivolous either.
She does own guns, she said, although she would not say how many.
Personally, she planned to avoid any trouble that could erupt in the aftermath of Tuesday’s election, she said. “I have children, I can’t afford to go to jail. And I don’t like orange.”
It is her fellow Make America Great Again (Maga) supporters who she fears will be tempted to take action if the former president loses the election. “At this point, many Republicans are not going to take it any longer. They will not allow the elections to be stolen from us twice.”
Westbrook remains convinced that the 2020 presidential election has been stolen from Trump. Now she’s just as confident that if Kamala Harris wins on Tuesday, it will be for one reason only.
‘Only if they cheat. I am absolutely positive about that.”
Trump has closely cultivated such passions for years, with his rhetoric increasing in intensity in recent days. He has repeatedly refused to confirm that he will accept the vote counting results, and earlier on Sunday he told supporters in Pennsylvania that he “should not have left” the White House four years ago.
A recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that one in four Republican Trump supporters believe that if Trump were to lose the election, he would have to nullify the results and do “whatever it takes” to Take back the White House. That’s a sobering finding, but a grossly understated one, judging by the mood at Trump’s rally in Kinston.
“People will riot if Trump doesn’t win,” said Cedric Perness, 38, an African-American Trump supporter. He said it would be too dangerous for him to take part in the post-election unrest – “I would be killed on the spot.”
Instead, he is doing what he can, he said, to help Trump by selling merchandise on behalf of his campaign. He has a booth selling hats and T-shirts, some of whom say, “You missed bitches.” Twice!”
In the final stages of the 2024 race, Trump has brought the passions of his millions of devoted followers to a boiling point. In the last three days of his campaign alone, he has made four stops in North Carolina, a battleground that Democrats have won only twice since Jimmy Carter in 1976 (the other time was Barack Obama in 2008).
Trump must hold North Carolina to have a clear chance of returning to the White House.
In these frantic final hours, he has adopted a two-pronged strategy to inflame his followers. On the one hand, he has raised their expectations by claiming he has a big lead in the polls.
“We are facing a landslide on Tuesday that is too big to manipulate,” a tired and hoarse-sounding Trump told the crowd in Kinston. “We have a big lead. We have a big lead. The fake news, they don’t tell you this. We have a big, nice lead.”
In fact, polls show him and Harris remaining neck-and-neck in North Carolina and the other six crucial swing states.
On the other hand, Trump has also laid the groundwork for a renewed conspiracy, should he need one, to undermine the election results by alleging widespread fraud. He praised the false accusation at the Kinston rally that Democrats are enabling noncitizens to vote in large numbers, and accused the Biden administration of pursuing an open-borders policy at the southern border with Mexico “perhaps [because they] wants to put them on the voting lists. That’s probably the reason.”
Supporters at the meeting faithfully repeated the lie on Sunday.
“That’s why they opened the border, to let all the illegals in so they could vote for Democrats,” said a woman in line who declined to give her name. ‘There has always been corruption in this country, but I had no idea it was this bad. America has been run into the ground – anyone with half a brain can see that.”
Almost as pervasive as supporters’ belief in the Democrats’ demonic intentions was their frustration with what to do about it. Last time, such toxic emotions culminated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Kinston rally attendees, following Trump, universally dismissed January 6 as a “setup” in which peaceful and patriotic Americans were lured into a cowardly state trap. Westbrook, the “locked and loaded” grandmother, admitted to being present at the Capitol that day.
Related: Trump disputes poll in Iowa that shows Harris leading in red state: ‘It’s not even close!’
Hundreds of Trump supporters, driven to distraction by the then-president’s “stop the steal” rhetoric, stormed the heart of American democracy that day. About 140 police officers were attacked in the violent clashes that followed.
That’s not how Westbrook sees it. “It wasn’t what they said happened. The only people who caused problems were Antifa, they were put with us to cause problems.”
This is a lot for any American voter to take away. She firmly believes the 2020 election was stolen from her favorite candidate, and now she fears a repeat of her performance will take place on Tuesday.
“Four years ago I felt angry, very angry. This time I will be even angrier.”
Should her worst fears come true and Trump lose, where will all that powerful emotion go?
“If he loses, I’m afraid,” said the grandmother.
