“This Claim About Election Fraud is Disputed”
November 22, 2020
A vehicle that took part in the rally on November 21, 2020. All images © Kate Stockrahm
A truck horn blares from a Stop & Shop parking lot in Long Beach, NY, signaling the caravan’s departure. Startled shoppers cover their ears as around 35 vehicles adorned with Trump flags and decals pull onto East Park Avenue. The caravan drivers shout “Trump 2020!” through car windows left open on an unseasonably warm November Saturday. A few onlookers cheer or pull out their phones to film. Others quietly hold up a single middle finger. Such a scene was common leading up to the 2020 presidential election, but Joe Biden won that election weeks ago.
Across the country, Trump supporters continue to protest the president’s loss while Trump himself continues to allege widespread election fraud. Though his claim has been dismissed by federal judges, officials, and members of his own party, it seems Trump’s voters will continue to fight for his lie in parking lots, outside of Capitol buildings, and on social media.
“We’re out here to support the greatest president of all time since John F. Kennedy,” says Thomas Ambort, the organizer of the “Trump Caravan and March” in Long Beach. The Facebook event shows a count of 103 people attending and almost 300 more interested, though the total number in the parking lot looks to be around 75. “Regardless of the presidency, whoever comes in, we’re still gonna fight the fight. This country was meant for being united,” he says.
As Ambort speaks, a young woman walks by. Her shirt reads “Hunter Biden fingered me.” Men wearing Proud Boys sweaters and “Sons of Trump” zip ups linger near a truck bed.
A young Black man rides his bicycle through the parking lot, shouting “racists” at the almost entirely white group. Police officers standing nearby intervene.
“We’re still in good standing with the election,” says Ambort. He says there are stories about postal workers destroying ballots and voting machines being thrown from trucks. “So, there’s a lot going on, and we definitely do still have a very high potential of getting President Trump back into the running.”
In 2016, right after Trump’s election, Oliver Hahl co-authored a study showing how a “lying demagogue” might be seen as “authentic” to his voters, despite telling numerous lies. “We were confused about the support,” says the Associate Professor of Organizational Theory and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon’s business school. “He's just a huckster,” says Hahl. “And so, why? Is he tricking them?”
The results of Hahl’s study showed that a “lying demagogue” can be viewed as authentic, and therefore maintain or even grow support, based on a surrounding “crisis of legitimacy.” In Hahl’s language of organizational theory, this crisis may be the “devaluation of a group” or an “absence of representation.” In Donald Trump’s America this crisis may be immigrants stealing lower income jobs or deep-state corruption in Washington.
“They only see someone like him as valued when they feel aggrieved,” Hahl says of Trump supporters. “What we’re wrestling with is, ‘Who’s aggrieved now?’ Because Trump was not representing a lot of the population.”
Back in the Stop & Shop parking lot, Russell Schneider, 28, says his parents have “basically disowned” him for his support of Trump. They, like most “Democratic Socialists and the media,” don’t see the good pro-Trump groups are doing. “We’re donating food and hosting a Thanksgiving Eve event for the community,” says Schneider of the Long Island Loud Majority (LILM), some of whose members are part of the gathering caravan, “but I’m called a Nazi every single day.”
Schneider is Jewish. A Star of David pendant hangs from a silver chain around his neck. In a 2019 speech to the Israeli American Council, Trump called Jewish people “brutal killers” and “not nice people at all.” This came after he refused to condemn the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017, some carrying Nazi flags.
Schneider also wears a black t-shirt which reads “#StopTheSteal,” a social media hashtag wielded by those who say the presidential election was stolen by Biden in a nationwide conspiracy. When asked why he came out today, he says, “What’s going on with Dominion and the integrity of this election, it’s not getting covered.”
Since Trump’s loss, the president has repeatedly accused Dominion Voting Systems of enabling election fraud. The company is responsible for voting machines in 28 states and Puerto Rico, according to their website. In his Wall Street Journal commentary, Dominion’s founder, John Paulos, calls the allegations he has to defend against “bizarre” and denies the company has ties to Hugo Chávez or enabled a “vote flipping” algorithm, which Trump’s legal team and supporters have argued.
“They know it’s lies, but the lie is convenient—an interpretation of the truth,” says linguist and author of The Art of the Lie, Dr. Marcel Danesi. In his book, he compares Trump’s rhetoric to that of past authoritarian leaders, both fictional, like Big Brother in 1984, and real, like Hitler and Mussolini. “Once you're into that interpretation, it's over. The truth doesn't matter anymore,” says Dr. Danesi.
Dr. Danesi’s own family emigrated from Italy during the Mussolini regime. He speaks passionately about the powerful effect of autocratic leaders’ rhetoric on their countrymen. “They worshipped him for what he stood for to people,” he says of Mussolini, a famed orator and the founder of Facism.
Dr. Danesi says that years of Trump’s autocratic rhetoric and “interpreted truths” explain why his supporters are currently fighting against election results and rejecting news media reports that counter their worldview. “To admit that the truth is not what you believe,” Dr. Danesi says, “is really an admission of self-defeat.”
The Stop & Shop parking lot begins to clear as the Trump caravan trails down East Park Avenue. The planned route laps the main road through town before stopping at the nearby Long Beach boardwalk to march on foot. “We’re standing up for Donald Trump, who stood up for us,” says Russell Schneider, who planned to attend another Trump event in Bellmore the next day.
Protests continue in New York and across the country as the transition to Biden’s administration is underway.
On Sunday, December 6th, Trump tweeted “...I WON THE ELECTION, BIG.” Within 3 minutes, the tweet had over 8,800 likes.
Two hours and 93,000 likes later, Twitter had posted a disclaimer below: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”