Carson Gerber, Kokomo Tribune
KOKOMO — Brenda Kelly stopped voting in 1984 after casting a ballot for President Ronald Regan.
The 67-year-old Florida native was fed up with politicians, including the ones from her own party. In her view, even candidates like President George W. Bush weren’t “true Republicans.”
But that all changed when Donald Trump entered the presidential primary in 2015. Kelly was immediately drawn to the New York real estate mogul and TV celebrity, who didn’t sound or act anything like a politician.
After watching Trump’s performance in the first Republican primary debate, she couldn’t wait to cast her ballot.
“I liked the way he talked about America,” Kelly said. “He was smart and different.”
Her love of Trump has only grown in the past four years watching President Joe Biden and Democrats run the country. Their policies focus on helping illegal immigrants more than American citizens, Kelly asserted.
Now, she’s excited to vote in just a few weeks to put Trump back in office for a second term.
“He just cares about the country,” she said. “He cares about the people. He proved that first go-around. He did everything he said, and then Biden went in one day and wiped it all out.”
TRUMP ON THE ROAD
For Kelly and her husband, Kevin, a 59-year-old Hoosier originally from Fort Wayne, supporting Trump is more than just a political stance. It’s become a lifestyle.
For the past five years, the couple has crisscrossed the nation in a massive RV they call “the boat” selling Trump merchandise. They started in Key West and made their way to South Dakota. For the last couple of years, they’ve hit up Trump rallies. Now, the Kellys are spending some time in Indiana.
On an afternoon in October, the two set up shop at a busy intersection of two state highways in rural Howard County. As traffic streamed past the display of billowing Trump flags, some honked and cheered in support while others shouted derisively.
The catcalls didn’t stop a steady stream of local Trump supporters from pulling in to peruse MAGA hats, bumper stickers and million-dollar bills with Trump’s face in the middle.
An array of T-shirts hung in the makeshift booth, some with Trump’s mugshot from the Fulton County jail in Georgia, where he was booked last year on charges related to the accusation that he attempted to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
While stocking up on their favorite Trump swag, customers said they believe the former president when he claims he won the 2020 election, despite no evidence or facts to support that claim.
Other customers like Elitia Henry, a 32-year-old 911 dispatcher from Windfall, said she’s already suspicious of the upcoming election and would have questions about the outcome of the race if Trump doesn’t win.
“We’ll see,” she said. “It’s about watching the circumstances and everything, so we’ll see.”
‘SOMETHING BIZARRE HERE’
Indiana has been solid Trump country for eight years. He handily won the state in 2016 and 2020, garnering 57% of the vote each time. Indiana’s electoral votes have routinely gone to Republican presidential candidates, but as recently as 2008 the state went for Democrat and first-time candidate Barack Obama.
Trump’s rise and the return of Republican dominance in the Hoosier state has been propelled by white, workingclass voters attracted to “The Apprentice” star’s bombastic, scorched-earth style.
That zealous support has led many Republican politicians and candidates in Indiana to adopt a similar approach, piggybacking on Trump’s amped-up rhetoric regarding immigrants and the economy and using his endorsements to bolster their conservative bona fides. The tactic has worked; no Democrat has won statewide office in Indiana since 2012.
Rosemary Miller, a 64-yearold Kokomo resident who bought Trump bumper stickers at the roadside stand, likes Trump’s rhetoric. Hearing him in 2015 made her start caring about politics again.
“He came along and told us where the country’s going — and it’s going downhill,” Miller said. “I really believe that.”
Others like Henry, the 911 dispatcher, admit Trump often makes crass, offensive statements and brags about himself too much, but that doesn’t bother her.
“Politicians are horrible, and I wanted somebody that wasn’t a politician, someone with fresh eyes from the outside to see that things need to change,” she said.
Many outside the Trumpsphere find the former president’s behavior to be offensive, rude and criminal. He has mocked the disabled, derided decorated veterans like former U.S. Sen. John McCain and bragged about groping women in the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. A jury last year found him liable for sexual abuse.
But behavior that would immediately end the career of nearly any other politician has no effect on Trump and sometimes makes him even more popular, argued Dan McAdams, a psychologist at Northwestern University and author of the 2020 book “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump.”
The former president’s unending claims that his actions and policies are perfect, that he has never made a mistake or apologized or shown remorse, has created an almost inhuman aura around him, McAdams contends.
“Trump supporters would hold anybody else accountable, but not him, because he’s different,” he said. “He doesn’t have empathy. He doesn’t have a sense of reverence. He’s never sad. People kind of sense that about him, like there’s something bizarre here. But they like that and like having him on their side.”
Those traits and lack of “emotional makeup that most people have” create a sense that Trump possesses some kind of superhuman power to do things no other person can, according to McAdams.
The feeling is especially strong among evangelical voters, McAdams asserted, some of whom see Trump as a vessel of God. A Pew Research poll found that about 80% of Trump voters identify with a Christian denomination.
That’s the case for Robert Morrisett, a 57-year-old Kokomo resident who heeds ministers preaching endtimes Christian prophesy. He believes Trump “stands for the truth” and has been ordained by God to be the last president before the antichrist comes.