This Tuesday the goalkeeper was friendly, but no more than that. He did not provide any details about the search warrant that the FBI and the federal prosecutor’s office executed the previous day in the private club of Mar-a-Lago, the South Florida residence where former President Donald J. Trump lives, in search of a bundle of secret documents that he took from the White House and that he doesn’t want to turn over to the National Archives.
He also did not want to identify himself. He just reported that no journalist could enter the imposing building on the edge of the Atlantic. “Sorry, these are orders from Mr. Trump,” he explained. And he added: “kindly move to the other side of the street, to the opposite sidewalk.”
The sidewalk in front is occupied by about two hundred people, including journalists and Trump supporters, those who in political language are called “Trumpists.” They are not aggressive at first. It is obvious that they are not happy but, as has happened on other occasions, they do not insult the journalists. Nor do they hide what they think.
“As the president says, the FBI and the Department of Justice are a rat’s nest, of Democrats, who want to end this country,” he comments. On Cuba the Dominican Horacio Jiménez, who lives in Miami but since he is retired, decided to drive about two hours and come to express his solidarity with “my president.”
His opinion is very similar to that of the other protesters. Those of Hispanic origin are a minority, but no less vociferous than the rest of the Anglos. The “trumpists” have it clear, the flags and posters they carry define their thinking and their objectives.
They basically want two things. They start from the principle that Trump has been robbed of the last presidential elections and that he must be re-elected in 2024. And that the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, “a communist appointed by Obama”, be dismissed.
It is difficult to convince them that Wray was not appointed by Obama but by Trump in August 2017, and that Biden has not changed him because normally the directors of the FBI serve for ten years. “How so my friend? He is lying to me.” He doesn’t calm down much when he shows her the FBI site, but he doesn’t say anything else. He walks away.
Near Mar-a-Lago, already in the center of West Palm Beach, there is a small cafeteria, well known by journalists, which serves a delicious and cheap breakfast. No more than 10 dollars, with coffee and omelet with sausage included. The Trumpists have also discovered it. As there is only “American coffee”, the clientele is mostly Anglo. But also more serene.
Surrounded by cold air conditioning to combat the heat that begins to tighten as the morning progresses, Michelle Henry, a New Yorker married to a Frenchman, watches the search of Trump’s house with less intensity. She though she is particularly upset that federal agents have searched her safe. “That’s private,” she says.
I tell him that it was precisely for this reason that they broke into the safe, the guards always throw themselves into the safe when they do a search. He answers that “in EuropeThey don’t do that. I’ll update her right away. I am European, like her husband, and in Europe they do it and more: they throw themselves into the safes that the investigated person may eventually have in a bank and they load the safes that they find in the residences.
She prepares a toast with jam and says that she does not consider herself a Trumpist but that she believes that the Democrats want to end democracy in this country and that they are lowering the quality of life in the United States. And that the social division that she experiences began with Obama. Trump didn’t contribute? “It can be, but as a defense mechanism. Since before presenting his candidacy they were already rejecting him. The press is responsible, he has all the blame… he never gave him a chance.” And for the first time she raises her voice.
And he gets excited: he believes that this “assault on Trump’s house” could be the beginning of something very serious. He says that now the authorities can “come and get us”, “the true patriots”.
It doesn’t interest him that the search of the house is the result of an investigation triggered by a grand jury, which the House committee uncovered enough for the FBI to get permission from a judge to search the house of a former president for First time in history. “No one searches the house of a president. It is sacred,” says Madame Henry.
When I get back to Trump’s house, almost at noon, there is a small disturbance. The doorman explains to me that now he does speak in detail. It all started when a crew from CNN arrived and started asking questions. The Trumpists reacted badly. “They started shouting against CNN, that they are anti-Trump, that they tell lies and are enemies from town“, Explain.
It is an interesting detail because that label was launched by the former president before he was elected and he deepened it later without his followers realizing it, or not knowing that the enemy of the people He was born in Eastern Europe at the time of Joseph Stalin.
There is not much more to see. The supporters begin to leave because it is already more than evident that Trump is not going to appear to greet them. It is the dream of many who, in addition to the devotion they profess to him, look at him as a god. Is Trump a god to you? Another brawl nearly starts when I ask them that. The response of the Dominican “friend” is immediate. “Are you a communist?”
I do not answer. I just say: “I’m from Atlético de Madrid”. She smiles and asks. “What’s that?”.
“A friend of the people”, I reply.
