Let me tell you how dishonest the press is. We have thousands of people in this room. Six — 7,000 — I think about 7,200 people here, we have about ten people over there — they’ll get the headline.” -Donald J. Trump
He’s led in the polls since August among GOP candidates vying for the Republican nomination. His outspoken persona has fashioned him into not only a business mogul, but a reality television star. With his unmistakable diction and demeanor, Donald Trump has amassed record numbers on televised debates and along the campaign trail — including Richmond.
Last night in Richmond, however, the spotlight may not have shone entirely on Trump. That’s because a group of determined dissidents, primarily VCU students, made it their mission to “disrupt the Trump” at his appearance in Virginia’s capital on Oct. 14.
It all started with a Facebook post,” said Camila Grez-Messina, a senior chemistry major at VCU who helped organize the protesters. “I saw that he was coming to Richmond and I posted ‘demonstration opportunity’ to find out who would be interested in doing something like this.”
Grez-Messina’s efforts to coordinate through social media were successful. Within two days, Grez-Messina was able to garner more than 100 interested people on a Facebook event page.
One of those people was Kendall King.
The fact that so much media and so much attention has been put toward a person who is intentionally racist and xenophobic is disgusting. The more that we can push back against someone like that — it’s important,” King said. “I have friends who are Latino and Latina, they identify with identities that people like Donald Trump continually try to insult.”
Before living in Richmond, Grez-Messina said they* resided in Leesburg, Virginia. Originally, though, they hail from Rancagua, Chile, and as a naturalized United States citizen, said they’re offended by Trump’s language and proposed policies on immigration.
“I’m an immigrant myself and my parents are immigrants,” Grez-Messina said. “The way that he has been talking about us is not correct, it’s demonizing. I’m not going to stand for that, he is not welcome here.”
The students erected a large sign at the rally that read “no human life is illegal,” which they said was immediately and forcefully removed by Trump supporters as Trump bellowed, “That’s why we have freedom of speech.”
One supporter even stood on the sign to ensure the students couldn’t raise it again.
“Even our presence in the rally without any kind of disruption was unwelcome,” Grez-Messina said. “When we started chanting, it got worse. People ripped signs out of our hands and we were forced out of the rally. We were yelled at, called dykes and lesbians and the N-word, and one of our protestors was spit on.”
Some of Trump’s supporters, however, were seemingly unprovoked by the students. Sharon Hall, a Richmond native, said she’s sick of politicians from Washington. For Hall, it’s not only Trump’s business acumen, but the fact that he’s a political outsider, that she said has captivated her.
“I’m sick of things as usual, we need a change. He can say some controversial things but I love it,” Hall said. “He thinks like I do. I love all his policies — the wall, Obamacare, his taxes.”
Trump also took notice of the dissenters in his hour-long speech, and told CNN the heckling did not bother him one bit.
“It’s a very, very small group. You look at the thousands of people — we had 7,000 people — you had 10 protesters,” he said. “So you look at the thousands of people we had tonight — not at all.”
Some members of the group provided The Commonwealth Times with video footage of their experience at the rally.
Grez-Messina said they warned the members of the dissenting group that they couldexpect hostility at the rally.
“We spent a lot of time notifying everyone that tearing signs, shoving and spitting should be expected,” Grez-Messina said.
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Fadel Allassan, Staff Writer
Fadel is a sophomore print journalism major. He is fluent in English and French and enjoys writing about politics. // Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn