Touching Grass: Reporting From The Scene at a Republican Gubernatorial Rally

The air was warm and sticky as I stepped out of the car; the transition from air conditioning to humid spring showers was jarring but not exactly unexpected. It was a peaceful Sunday night, and after a long distance on the road, I had arrived at my destination, wary but curious. Here, in what could only be described as the “middle of nowhere” in backwoods New York, was the site of the “Freedom Rally,” a disparate gathering of right-wing conservative groups, Republican gubernatorial candidates, and concerned citizens who had prepared speeches, merchandise, and a safe venue to network amongst like-minded peers. As a working man of the people, I had zero compunctions in joining in on the fun, for who is Jack McKraken if not a concerned citizen with my own set of right-wing beliefs? So, I buttoned my shirt, adorned my red, white, and blue tie, and affixed to my breast an assuredly rare sight for an event like this: the button of the National Justice Party.

For the first time since its founding: the Hyphen Report would be touching grass, live from the scene.

The parking lot was packed, and as I meandered past a police cruiser sitting ready at the venue entrance, I reached for my phone and called my contact at the event, who I’ll refer to as Don. Don, a man who could only be described as the “mayor” of his local town, was the kind of guy who knew more people than an Irish bartender. Eventually, he met me outside. He was wearing a “shoot your local drug dealer” t-shirt and had a slice of pizza in his callused, working-class hands. Don was a tough-as-nails, boomer-aged conservative, strong as an Ox, and underneath his cherry red MAGA hat was a head filled with great natural instincts and a lifetime of lived experiences that led him here. Don had informed me of the event just the day prior, and without much hesitation, he guided me inside the front doors and showed me exactly what this night was all about.

What I saw was a comforting sight, to say the least. This large, opulent arena was filled with a steadily growing throng of common White conservatives. Numbered around two hundred, many wore suits and ties; the rest, blue-collar work boots, hoodies, and attire emblazoned with the logos of companies like 5.11 Tactical, Infowars, and Nine-Line. A smattering of local organizations, all with conservative slants, were out in force and whose names had been plastered on signs and banners along the walls. Groups like the “Redacted County Federation of Republican Women,” “Audit NY,” “Conservative Citizens Pact,” and “Youth for Christ” mingled with the crowds while their tables lay stocked with informational brochures about various issues and their individual mission statements. The table where the “Moms for Liberty” had set up camp had a particular tasty draw, as it was loaded with homemade pies, cookies, and cakes, all for sale to raise money for charities like suicide awareness. The sight of families, both young and old alike, was a warming one, and despite the sometimes cutthroat nature of right-wing politics, seeing this many White people all together as one, smiling and shaking hands in brotherhood, was a wholesome departure from the more online norm.

Quite the departure from our more elegant, civilized roots, but the atmosphere remained the same.

I perused the open bar, eyed the long buffet table of pizza pies catered by a local joint, and took in earfuls of blaring disco music which thundered throughout the two-story venue, causing some of the older patrons to shuffle around in a display of sensory overload. I signed a petition and shook some hands but eventually found a seat as the event was about to begin in earnest, and boy, did it begin!

Right away, a PowerPoint slideshow began beaming onto a fold-out screen against the far wall. To my surprise, it was Star Wars themed. The lights darkened, the crowd’s chatter dulled, and the disco music had softly transitioned into the ending theme of “Episode 4: a New Hope.” The event organizers did their best to copy the iconic “text scroll” of the Star Wars films, but instead of giving an overview of galactic politics, the static blurbs of text displayed at this real-life event were filled with the hopeful slogans and chants typically wielded by your everyday conservative. The crowd watched with eager smiles and clapped as they partook in clever, lib-owning memes. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was a picture of three men, George Washington, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, forming a trifecta of patriotism around fancy text which proclaimed “The Rebel Alliance.”

A wholesome boomer meme like this was among many of those shared.

Soon, a barrage of still images depicting space vessels from the Star Wars franchise flashed before our eyes. One after the other, until finally, they transitioned away with an animated wipe. “The rebel Alliance needs help!” A new phrase grew up on the screen. “Together, these big riggs and freighters broke the supply chain throughout the galaxy, causing those who complied and obeyed in the galaxy to FEEL THE PAIN!” The images of ships then changed to real-life photos of truckers driving in long convoys, many of which had American flags flapping in the wind. This reference to the Canadian and American “Freedom trucker” movements caused the crowd to erupt into raucous applause. Then finally, the slideshow came to a close, with some of the last words being cast onto the screen being biblically aggressive. “You are fighting against flesh and blood, but also wickedness in high places.”

I furrowed my brow. “Wow,” I muttered. “Based!”

Soon after, the ceremonies were kicked off with a recital of the national anthem, sung by a very talented local music student. We faced the massive, 15×20 foot American flag draped over the second-floor balcony and removed our hats out of respect while singing along. After that, a local pastor opened us in prayer before a flurry of conservative speakers began their speeches. First to the plate was the emcee, a bald, stocky man once deemed “Trump’s favorite Sheriff in New York,” Mike Carpinelli. Mike was charming and sweaty, constantly smiling and hamming it up on stage with a healthy dose of good-humored patriotism. He clumsily lobbed a few shots towards the Covid enjoying left, well-received with a crowd like this, before introducing the night’s first personality: a long-legged MAGA mom and independent conservative radio host, Shannon Joy.

“Shannon is completely independent and identifies with no political factions! She places truth above partisan politics and endeavors to educate and encourage her amazing audience to courageously resist tyranny in all its forms and join the timeless fight for Liberty! Her political ideas are rooted in Judeo Christian principles, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.” – Shannon Joy Website “About Us.”

Mrs. Joy appeared to be somewhat of a celebrity amongst the crowd, receiving more applause and cheers from the men in the room than the women. The reason for this is no mystery. Shannon was tall, slim, fit in a sporty blazer, and her tanned, nymph-like face was flanked by a blonde cascade of hair kept neatly in a feminine bob. As she greeted the cheering crowd, she quickly got to the point: that she’s a “God-loving, conservative radio host with Judeo-Christian values,” and she’s “worried about the direction of the country.”

She then fired off a fusillade of sore issues that most White working-class people can relate with. “There’s violent crime spreading out to our suburbs, and there’s sexual grooming going on in our schools,” she exclaimed, with many visitors winging in existential pain, or giving little ‘amens’ under their breath, understanding the many real dangers which now permeate throughout America. But what struck me odd was the sudden pivot away toward—objectively—more secondary issues. “But none of this is more important than bodily autonomy!”

The crowd surged with energy as they cheered her attack on covid and the left’s fumbling of a very specific political football. “We are fighting for our lives! The great reset is the new way to oppress citizens!” The boos and growls of anger grew from the crowd, and like a conductor, she morphed the resentment into a symphony of cheers. “We are miserable because of a pharmaceutical technocracy! We need to do things differently in New York State, but we can’t do it alone. We need some air support to tear down this sick system through unity!”

Shannon looked furious but maintained an air of femininity all throughout her speech. Finally, she capped off her fiery run on the soapbox to proclaim that “there are crimes against humanity going on in New York State and across the country” and that we need “justice for all the nursing home deaths. The toxic vaccine deaths and ventilation protocol deaths…we must obliterate this tyranny for our children!”

Shannon departed the stage and sat back down, picking up a wine glass and taking in a glowing reaction from the crowd, only to be replaced by the next speaker, introduced to us by Sheriff Mike as the son of a great man and personal friend. The young, hawkish and energetic politician took the stage with gusto. It was none other than Andrew Giuliani, son of Rudy Giuliani, savior of New York City in the 1990s, and notorious lawyer for President Trump. Unlike Rudy, Andrew is young, spunky, has a head of red hair, and he’s running for governor of the state of New York in 2022. Like Rudy, however, Andrew has the same gruff New York City accent, talks big about cleaning up our streets by “ending cashless bail” for criminals, and wants to “end the war on cops day one” in office. He hopes that by doing this, he can stop the flow of out-migration from New York to nearby states, oblivious to the fact that the racial demographics alone are bad enough to repel White people from the same state he’s trying to woo.

The overly patriotic themes of Andrews’s campaign, as seen from this screencap taken from his campaign website, only reek of a phony sense of “trying too hard.”

He gives compliments to Shannon Joy and makes the sudden remark that, unlike many of those out there, he decided “not to get the shot.” This, of course, nets him a flurry of applause, which he accepts gleefully. Before he leaves, he fires a glancing blow at the incumbent governor Kathy Hochul and suggests that a debate be set up not in New York City or Long Island but right here in Redacted county.

The transition from Andrew Giuliani to the next guest, Gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino is met with hearty applause as well. As a regular front-runner for Republican politics in the State and as a long-time sports broadcaster on terrestrial radio, Rob wasted no time in attacking his political opponents by insisting that, if they were here now, “the Democrats would be using those weird covid microphones.” He quickly referred to ex-governor Andrew Cuomo as a “thug” and regaled the crowd with personal stories which alluded to Cuomo’s corruption. Before long, he commented that “it’s nice to be here with such a great room of deplorables” which, predictably, fired up an onslaught of whistles, cheers, and whoops from front to back. “The revenge of the normal people is coming!” he shouted before exiting the stage.

Astorino, sitting at the center of this table, addresses his real constituents.

The next guest could have easily been mistaken for royalty, and as a third-party observer hearing the build-up from our emcee, Sheriff Mike, I half expected General George S. Patton to walk on out. “The greatest honor you can give to a veteran is to go to the polls,” said Mike, soberly. “I’m proud to introduce Lt. Colonel in the U.S Army Reserve, Congressman Lee Zeldin!”

Congressman Zeldin was a mild-mannered and unassuming jew who took the stage in a sweatshirt and pair of oxfords. He waved to the crowd as the gleam from the overhead lights beamed off of his forehead, made much larger by a receding hairline. “Let’s fire Kathy Hochul!” He cried, accented by a wave of emotion from the crowd before him. “We’re fighting a battle for the heart and soul of this country!” He added. “We need to repeal the NYS SAFE act…add term limits to every position!” Zeldin continued to clarify that he is anti-critical race theory, anti-masked kids, and makes a safe statement that “masked children in schools is child abuse,” also adding that “red flag laws need to be stopped. Losing is not an option!” A short pause before his next line caused the room to explode “We need to teach our kids that they live in the greatest country in the world!”

“Zeldin was raised within Conservative Judaism, and his wife, Diana, is Mormon. The couple have identical twin daughters” – Wikipedia

With ease, the jew, Zeldin, was able to play on the heartstrings of the common folk, but even he was veritably eclipsed when compared to a woman he personally introduced next: his running mate, the openly gay ex-NYPD Deputy Inspector, Alison Esposito. Alison was broad and tough, exactly what you would expect from a female member of the NYPD. Although she traded in the uniform for a power suit, she wasted no time in reminding the crowd that despite being female, she had no problem throwing her hair up and getting to work. With an impressive 24-plus years of service in the NYPD, she staunchly “backs the blue” and that she’s on a “rescue mission to save our state!” A fierce growl overtakes her face, and she tightens a white knuckle grip on the microphone before vowing to go after what she calls criminal DA’s and “end mask mandates on day one!”

Alison Esposito plays the role of “Blaster” to Lee Zeldin’s “Master,” and in a way, acts as the perfect lesbian golem in his campaign for Governor.

“My mother always used to tell me that Democrats and Republicans don’t always agree on how to get the job done, but at the end of the day, they still loved the country. But now…” She paused for a moment to snarl like a pitbull eager to strike. “But now they don’t!” The crowd was incensed, and for the first time since the speeches began, there was a long round of standing ovations.

Once things finally simmered down, the guests coming up to speak started to decline in political stature but were nonetheless celebrities in their own right. Joe Pinion, a token “based black,” stepped up to announce he was running against the jew, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. “The needs of the lawless are above the needs of the common man,” he proclaimed, as well as asserting that “if you wanna teach kids about masturbation, then I’m not your guy!”

Runners up in this concert of conservatism included a surgical nurse named Christa, who was unjustly fired from her place of employment after 32 years of loyal service just because she refused to get the COVID vaccine. Several local personalities soon followed to speak their piece, including some seemingly random blatino running for the local city council. Despite appearing as if he could easily belong in the line-up of any given NYPD holding pen and having more visible face tattoos than Mike Tyson, with a deadpan, robotic-like speech, he promised to “protect all our families.”

The irony of it was not lost on me, and luckily, many of the attendees were beginning to file out the door. Still, the few that remained to speak onstage continued to ramble on with similar talking points about Covid and the growing violence across the state. Personal politics and attacks on big names like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Kathy Hochul were humorous but bittersweet. One thing was for certain: they all had their message aligned, and almost all of them paid verbal tribute to the idea of an ongoing tyranny imposed by the deep state, which was steeped under the auspices of Covid-19.

Conclusion

It is now clear and obvious that the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of mainstream conservatives has grown exponentially more radical and more right-leaning than ever before. It wasn’t so long ago when show-boating Republican figureheads were deemed powerless to address the growing surges in violent crime all across American cities without first paying major deference to the idea of racial injustice imposed upon blacks, and the fervor in which they now lambaste the leftist poison being injected into our public schools has reached a previously unforeseen boil.

But what’s changed?

Aside from the intensity of the violence to where it can no longer be obfuscated and the egregious degeneracy that has now become commonplace in grade school curriculums to the point where it’s no longer tolerable, it is without a doubt the work of nationalist activists, podcasters, thinkers, writers, and artists that have forced your average mainstream conservative to toy with ideas that they never had the intention of ever addressing previously. I knew things were different the moment some of the speakers began talking about everyday issues in ways that even I couldn’t help but applaud! But despite these concessions, we must meet this growing competition head-on, and it is imperative that we continue the attack!

These cheap measures made to keep working-class White people engaged in the false hopes of electoral politics are entirely by design, as the system knows full well that it is spinning plates that it increasingly cannot maintain in motion for much longer. As a response, it has loosened the cuffs on its many illusionists who populate the front line of American Conservativism, with the express purpose of preventing everyday people, like those at this meeting, for instance, from engaging in reality and adopting ideas that are rooted in truths, and ultimately, lead to their liberation.

What they offer instead is nothing but a gaudy show of smoke and mirrors and a continued refusal to engage in any racial politics whatsoever, instead choosing to point fingers at individuals while steering clear of naming malicious groups unless it’s the DNC. Instead of highlighting the hypocrisies of the jewish machine, which grinds us like a millstone under the weight of its global Magen David, they instead make the claims that all the worlds problems are the direct result of individual rogue megalomaniacs with “Marxist” or “communist” leanings like Klaus Schwab, Joe Biden, or George Soros. When it comes to explaining the reasoning behind the surge in black violence across our nation, Republicans are quick to proclaim that it isn’t black terror that is the problem, but instead, it’s democrat politicians and aging heads of state that would lose control if we just imposed term limits and voted for our favorite rep harder next time!

Worse of all is its eagerness to continue to push Covid-19 narratives as if the virus itself is even a relevant issue anymore. One of the things that used to separate nationalists and conservatives was oppression from the system. Nationalists have long been the target of censorship and de-platforming for our political speech, but conservatives, as long as they played inside a safe zone of Zionist talking points, were free to exist and maintain a meek political presence. This heavy-handed response from the system, however, would always serve to instill a moral superiority in the heart of the Nationalist, for he believes that he fights against a truly unjust foe.

Covid, however, has changed this dynamic. By leveraging some oppression towards average Conservatives and labeling them as crazy racists and disinformation peddlers merely for their sane positions on things like vaccines, masks, and closed businesses, this now gives the mainstream the same moral justifications that previously were reserved only for nationalists and entrenches their side of politics regardless of how effective or accurate the politics may be. It’s the thing that lets normies believe they’re a part of the “rebel alliance.” Mix this newly gained moral strength along with fearmongering over the potential for future lockdowns, and all of a sudden, the system has a convenient strategy for deradicalizing individuals by leading them down the rabbit hole of health and small business activism. While both may be important to some extent, none of the ultimate goals of those individual issues will ever be attained if not for the toppling of the current order, which makes them impossible by design.

In the end, Conservatives may have adopted spicier rhetoric that rings a little closer to our own beliefs, but their solutions are the same meaningless, tepid procrastination we’ve grown quite accustomed to seeing. While the GOP might promise an end to crime and a return to a normal, post-covid world, at the end of the day. the loudest, mightiest advocates they have allocated for you are a jewish congressman from the Hamptons and his lesbian attack dog! When Mcdonald’s experiences a lull in sales, they bring back the McRib and color the McFlurry green. This concept is exactly what the current form of conservatism is trying to adopt. They peacock a tougher, meaner bird but behind the curtain flaps and pecks the flightless dodo.

The GOP and this Shamrock Shake have a lot in common: a tasty treat in the short term, and a pair of man-boobs in the long term.

As for the white people who showed up tonight, I was left with a bag of mixed emotions. Boomers, Gen-x’s, and the throngs of young, White, working-class families who subscribe to a right-wing mentality appear increasingly desperate. The situation in America and the future itself is bleak and uncertain, and the only guiding light they’re allowed to have without social repercussions is an equally desperate Conservatism. But what Conservatism offers them is not a lasting solution to their existential woes but a low-dose placebo. It offers them an outlet to consume and remain sedated until the end of their days. A false promise that the boat will stop rocking so they can enjoy their cocktails in peace without the fear of it spilling on the deck.

As for me, I eventually shuffled my way out the door, passing a young woman who, with a giant smile, was recording a Tik-Tok with Andrew Giuliani. I reached into my bag and left a half stack of National Justice Party brochures next to dozens of others promoting local events and candidates. Hopefully, someone would grab one and begin their journey to the next phase of American politics and leave the three-ring circus behind.

I started the car, rolled the window down, and began the long drive home. We have a lot of work to do, and while I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore, for the first time in a while, I craved a Camel blue.