By ASHLEY PARKER, NICK CORASANITI and ERICA BERENSTEIN
Friday, August 05, 2016
“Kill her.”
“Trump that bitch!”
“Build a wall — kill them all.”
New York Times reporters have spent over a year covering Donald J. Trump’s rallies, witnessing so many provocations and heated confrontations at them that the cumulative effect can be numbing: A sharp sting that quickly dulls from repetition.
But what struck us was the frequency with which some Trump supporters use coarse, vitriolic, even violent language — in the epithets they shout and chant, the signs they carry, the T-shirts they wear — a pattern not seen in connection with any other recent political candidate, in any party.
Not everyone attending a Trump rally behaves this way. In fact, many are polite and well mannered. But while protesters are often shouted down, crowds seldom express disapproval of the crude slogans and angry outbursts by Mr. Trump’s supporters. Indeed, these displays have become inextricably bound with the Trump show itself — as much as the snaking entrance lines and the calls to “build a wall” along the border with Mexico.
With that in mind, we set out to record the shouts, slogans, imprecations and interactions among audience members that set Trump events apart from other political gatherings. We also obtained recordings from others in attendance, who sometimes were closer to the action.
The resulting compilation gives a sense of what we saw – from Maine to North Carolina, from Ohio to Arizona.