Dozens of boats circled the St. Clair River along Marysville’s waterfront midday Saturday with flags supporting President Donald Trump flapping in the wind.
Occasionally, they blew horns on their boats and airhorns, acknowledging supporters looking on from the shore. Michele Lundgren, wearing a “Women for Trump” T-shirt, danced in place and motioned to a handful of counter-demonstrators who stood quietly along a railing nearby.
“Ain’t nothing like a Trump rally, baby,” Lundgren said. “Woo, woo!”
But the audible enthusiasm in Marysville was still much quieter than the flag-toting mainland crowd of a few hundred who awaited the TrumpTilla Boat Parade downriver later that afternoon. For more than two hours, they cruised south on the St. Clair River, ending with a rally in downtown St. Clair.
How attendees and boaters expressed their reasons for coming varied, while their message was the same.
John Zsinor,who lives in Clyde Township near Goodells, and Port Huron resident Mike Mitrzyk were waiting in their boats at the launch in Marysville — Zsinor said they were waiting for a pizza — when they agreed what brought them out.
“I would’ve been out regardless,” Zsinor said, referencing the nice weather. “A bunch of friends getting together and supporting Trump or his re-election.”
“Us too!” Mitrzyk said. “President Trump needs to be the president for 2020 for sure."
Finding 'like-kind' in 'little towns'
Other attendees pointed to specific issues in talking about their support for President Trump.
Richard Vollmer,of Port Huron, pointed to things like justice reform, Trump’s impact on the economy, and how “he’s taken care of the virus” by keeping restrictions early on some airport activity and international ports of entry.
“He’s done so much for the military. … This is for all his accomplishments that he’s done,” Vollmer said.
“He pardoned Susan B. Anthony. How about that?” he added. “He’s brought jobs back. He’s brought them back here to Michigan. … There’s so much stuff they don’t report in the mainstream media. It’s just terrible.”
Although Saturday’s boat parade and rally were a first for people like Zsinor and Vollmer, Lundgren said it was her third — after one in metro Detroit and another in Upstate New York. She drove up from Detroit Saturday for the St. Clair County rally.
Coming to a largely Republican area, Lundgren said, felt more welcoming than, at times, where she lives.
“Thank God. Where I live, I have an American flag and I look at it every day to make sure it’s still there. I love little towns,” she said with a laugh. “… It’s something to show a little support, and it feels really good to be with like-kind. That’s basically it. You come out here and you feel comfortable you’re with people who have your same agenda.”
The counter-demonstrators held Biden-Harris signs supporting former Vice-President Joe Biden and his running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, D-California, in Marysville, occasionally exchanging a few words with boaters yards away.
“A group of us decided that we wanted to have a presence down here and show our support for Biden and Harris,” resident Kathy Swantek said. “We may be outnumbered in terms of the number of Republicans in the county, but we are a mighty force.”
Rallying around a common theme
As the procession came in, hundreds of Trump supporters lined the boardwalk at St. Clair's Palmer Park, waving and cheering.
John Bolf, of Algonac, stood on a bench — a giant Trump flag in hand and, as his wife Patricia Meldrum-Bolf put it, “waving away with his Vietnam shirt on for veterans.
“It’s called supporting Trump and nurses and health care and responders, and everybody that this is for today,” Meldrum-Bolf said.
They both said Saturday’s rally was about sharing energy.
“There’s a theme here too, I think. I see red, white, and blue on all these flags,” Bolf said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
“It feels good to see people believe in something with everything so dismal,” his wife added. “Energy and enthusiasm.”
The end TrumpTilla event included brief statements from Republican lawmakers and November election candidates. It was expected to conclude with a “sound of freedom” where boaters and other attendees’ vehicles revved engines to support law enforcement, health care workers and emergency responders.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.
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