{"id":12335,"date":"2016-05-26T19:41:53","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T01:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=12335"},"modified":"2016-05-26T21:16:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T03:16:04","slug":"true-believers-mix-with-the-ambivalent-at-trump-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/05\/true-believers-mix-with-the-ambivalent-at-trump-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"True believers mix with the ambivalent at Trump rally"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t<div id=\"slides-12335\" class=\"navis-slideshow\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slide-nav\">\n\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"prev\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"next\"><\/a>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slides_container\"><div id=\"12335-slide1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Sidney-boys-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Sidney-boys-1-771x471.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Skylar Petrik, center, flew his Cessna-172 from Sidney to Billings to attend the Donald Trump rally Thursday. With him was Parker Tofte, left, and Peyton Tofte. Click on the arrow at top right for more photos.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"12335-slide2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Howell2-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Howell2-1-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Bill Howell drove over from West Yellowstone to attend the Trump rally.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"12335-slide3\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Edward-Brown-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Edward-Brown-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Vendor Edward Brown, holding the dog that is normally on his shoulder, talks with a couple of rally-goers outside the MetraPark arena Thursday.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"12335-slide4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Protestors-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Protestors-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Rachel and Darrell Rosin drove in from Huntley to protest at the Trump rally. They had the \"protest pen\" to themselves.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"12335-slide5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Vendor1-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Vendor1-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Memorabilia vendor Danny Sheil said Billings was a lot more peaceful than Albuquerque, N.M., was on Tuesday.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"12335-slide6\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Watchers-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Watchers-1-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Who will watch the watchers? This guy, apparently, who was taking photos of the folks gathered on the platform reserved for the media.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><script>jQuery( document ).ready( function() { loadSlideshow( 12335, 'https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/05\/true-believers-mix-with-the-ambivalent-at-trump-rally\/', 6 ) } );<\/script>\n<p>Skylar Petrik has some misgivings about Donald Trump, but he can\u2019t wait to cast his first vote in a presidential election for the billionaire developer.<\/p>\n<p>Petrik, an 18-year-old from Sidney, flew his Cessna-172 to Billings for the Trump rally in the MetraPark arena Thursday afternoon, and he brought two friends with him.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What does he like about Trump?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that he\u2019s an outsider,\u201d Petrik said, \u201cand also the fact that he\u2019s funding his own campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, there are those misgivings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been trying to be optimistic about Donald Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there are some things that scare me.\u201d In particular, Petrik said, he wishes Trump would stop attacking certain groups of people, and he wishes he were less of a demagogue.<\/p>\n<p>But he sees a pragmatist behind the public fa\u00e7ade, which is why he doesn\u2019t care about charges that Trump is a flip-flopper. That means he might go to Washington and actually get something done through compromise, Petrik said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the Democrats should love Donald Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cThey might be able to get some of their liberal agenda passed. He perfected the art of the deal, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12342\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 140px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-12342 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Stan-Hoggatt2-1.jpg\" alt=\"Stan\" width=\"140\" height=\"205\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stan Hoggatt<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At 74, Stan Hoggatt has been voting for more than 50 years, and the Billings resident was equally certain about who he was voting for.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a businessman, and he makes absolute sense to me,\u201d he said of Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Asked which of Trump\u2019s policy positions appealed to him, Hoggatt said, \u201cSouthern border. Immigration. Illegal immigrants. All his hot-button issues I agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Howell, 77, drove over from West Yellowstone for the rally, but he said he wasn\u2019t a solid Trump supporter. He just wanted to see him in person and hear him out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like how he lays it on the line,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes he engages his mouth before he engages his brain, but if he surrounds himself with good people, he\u2019ll do all right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, down in what Rachel Rosin called the \u201cprotest pen,\u201d a small portion of the lower MetraPark parking lot reserved for motorcycles and demonstrators, Rosin and her husband, Darrell, had the entire \u201cpen\u201d to themselves.<\/p>\n<p>They came in from Huntley, Darrell said, because Trump \u201cscares me to death.\u201d Rachel, carrying a \u201cStop Trump\u2019s fascist agenda\u201d sign, said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to stand up for what you believe in, and I believe he\u2019d be terrible for the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rachel said her sister was inside the arena. \u201cShe\u2019s undecided,\u201d she said. \u201cI think she just wants to hear him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tessa Cozzens was trying to make up her mind, too.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"well\"><div class=\"dfad dfad_pos_1 dfad_first\" id=\"_ad_652\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/mjhWkW\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\" alt=\"CapreAir_Variable\" width=\"510\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18069\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cI\u2019m in between, actually,\u201d she said. \u201cI like Bernie and Trump.\u201d Bernie being Bernie Sanders, of course, the last candidate still challenging Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.<\/p>\n<p>Cozzens was wearing a Trump hat, for which she\u2019d just paid $20, but it was for her boyfriend, a \u201cbig-time\u201d Trump supporter. She said Trump appears to be honest and open, but \u201cI really like Bernie as a person, more than Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cozzens came up from Powell, Wyo., for the rally, accompanied by her grandmother, Midge Johnson. Her grandmother was not ambivalent at all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not much I don\u2019t like,\u201d she said of Trump. \u201cI\u2019m for the fact that he\u2019s never been in office. He\u2019s never relied on anyone else\u2019s money.\u201d She said she also believed in \u201cthe wall,\u201d the impregnable one that Trump promises to build along the nation\u2019s southern border, and to have Mexico pay for.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12343\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-12343 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Tessa-and-Midge-1-336x224.jpg\" alt=\"Pair\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Tessa-and-Midge-1-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Tessa-and-Midge-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Tessa-and-Midge-1-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trump-Tessa-and-Midge-1-1170x780.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tessa Cozzens and her grandmother, Midge Johnson, came up from Powell, Wyo., for the rally.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Johnson said she was born in Canada and had to wait five years to become a citizen, during which time she and her husband couldn\u2019t get so much as a traffic ticket. Everyone should have to follow the same rules, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The peaceful nature of the Billings rally was a welcome change of pace for Danny Sheil, who was hawking Trump memorabilia outside the arena. He was doing the same thing in Albuquerque, N.M., on Tuesday, he said, when things got violent at a Trump rally. Sheil said protesters broke through police lines right near his stand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey stole a flag off the back of our stand and burned it,\u201d he said. \u201cStole a stack of T-shirts and set them on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sheil, who hails from Florida, said sales weren\u2019t too bad Thursday, \u201cbut there\u2019s too many of us out here doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked if he was a Trump supporter himself, Sheil didn\u2019t answer directly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe guy who owns the company is a big Trump supporter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>One of Sheil\u2019s competitors, also a Floridian, was Edward Brown, whose carnival-barker voice made him stand out from the crowd, as did the Chihuahua named Mickey perched on his shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHurry, hurry!\u201d Brown bellowed. \u201cDonald Trump T-shirts, hats and buttons! You better hurry. We only got a couple left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He had quite a few, actually, but vendors, like politicians, sometimes bend the truth a little. Brown said he was getting tired of being on the road and would be heading back to Florida after the rally here. But he didn\u2019t want to miss this one, either.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the demographics,\u201d he said, \u201cthis is a Trump town.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Skylar Petrik has some misgivings about Donald Trump, but he can\u2019t wait to cast his first vote in a presidential election for the billionaire developer. Petrik, an 18-year-old from Sidney, flew his Cessna-172 to Billings for the Trump rally in the MetraPark arena Thursday afternoon, and he brought two friends with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2853,183],"class_list":["post-12335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-metrapark","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}