A Trump Rally Stuck in Time

Photographs by Christopher Lee Sign up for Inside the Trump Presidency , a newsletter featuring coverage of the second Trump term.

T he concerns about $4.14-a-gallon gas at the Lincoln Costco an hour and a half to the east? The worries about the war in Iran, the sort of Middle East conflagration this president promised to avoid? The disappointment over the Epstein files, which failed to bring down the alleged network of deep-state pedophiles? This was not that sort of political event.

No, yesterday’s Trump rally in Grand Island, Nebraska—a raspberry-colored fleck in a jammy-red state, a couple of hours from the nearest major airport—was a distinct type of Trump rally, more 2016 than 2026.

It was a Midwest way station on President Trump’s recent tour of solid Republican strongholds.

And it was a chance for longtime Trump supporters to show their appreciation for the two-term president who has somehow dominated the national conversation for three terms—and, more important, for him to bask in their reflected glow.

Trump, after all, is in the middle of a rough stretch.

Interest rates and gas prices— all prices , frankly—are high, and his approval is low.

He doesn’t seem to really care how Republican candidates fare in the midterms, but he’d rather they win than lose, if only because it would save him the headache of congressional investigations .

Much like his midterm convention last month in Dallas—a Trump-a-palooza that few Republicans other than Trump particularly wanted—the Nebraska rally seemed to be less about helping his party and more about reminding himself of his immovable base, via yet another trip back through the good ol’ days. (Although Nebraska’s races for governor and Senate are closer than Republicans might like, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated them “solid Republican” and “likely Republican,” respectively.) “We won this state all three times by a landslide,” Trump said, moments after taking the stage, raising the question of what exactly he was doing here.

Christopher Lee for The Atlantic I have covered Trump , in some form or fashion, since early 2016, when he dispatched the candidate I had been following (Jeb!), the first of several purported giants he slayed on his way to the White House.

The scene I found when I arrived in Grand Island midmorning yesterday was, in many ways, reminiscent of those early rallies, when the lines were long, the promises had not yet been broken, and Trump really might have shot people on Fifth Avenue without losing votes.

Deb Reeves, a row-crop (corn, soybeans) farmer, had come to the rally with her 17-year-old grandson, Lincoln, and his buddies for the honor of seeing the president, and wanted to dispel the myth that farmers like herself are upset about the higher prices.