In Pennsylvania, Trump fans cheer his ‘excellent choice’ for the Supreme Court

On Saturday, as Donald Trump announced from the White House that he was formally nominating federal judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, thousands of his supporters tuned in from an airport parking lot just outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. There, they were waiting for the US president to make his next stop: one of his signature campaign rallies, which have lately shifted to mostly outdoor, airport settings due to Covid-19.

Within minutes of arriving on stage, Trump lauded Judge Barrett’s credentials.

“Judge Barrett is a brilliant legal mind and extraordinary scholar,” he said. “Number one in her class… And most importantly, she will defend your God-given rights and freedoms, she will.”

The rally attendees FRANCE 24 spoke to all supported Trump’s pick.

“I think she’s a really excellent choice. She seems to be highly qualified,” said Amy McLane, a 57-year-old resident of nearby Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. “She’s a conservative, I’m a conservative, and I think she’s made it clear that she wouldn’t allow her faith values to interfere with legal decisions… that’s really important.”

McLane, who worked most of her career in radio, calls herself an independent and said she voted for Barack Obama before turning to Trump in 2016. She found herself “disappointed” with the former president and signature policies like Obamacare, which will appear before the Supreme Court in oral arguments just a week after election day.

Republican attorneys general who brought the case hope a decision could strike down key parts of the Affordable Care Act, essentially overturning the largest US healthcare reform since the 1960s. Barrett, in a 2017 law journal article, called the reasoning that led the Supreme Court to uphold Obamacare in 2012 and 2015 “illegitimate”.

Waiting for Trump to speak at the rally, McLane also said she hoped Barrett, if confirmed, would oppose abortion: “That doesn’t necessarily mean I support the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but I do support life over abortion,” she told FRANCE 24.

Fellow attendees Erica Cappabianco, 40, and Karen Richard, 43, also ranked abortion as a top reason for backing Trump and his appointee. The two women, both healthcare workers in neighbouring Pennsylvania counties, were attending the rally with their sons.

“We help bring babies into the world, not to take them out, and that’s really a huge sticking point,” said Richard, who works as a midwife.

Daryl Bernard, who had driven to the rally from Maryland with his two daughters, likewise admired Barrett’s appeal to family values.

“That would be a great role model for my girls,” said Bernard, a 55-year-old sales representative in the medical industry. “Mother of seven, multiple races, somebody who is juggling all the responsibilities of home and a career and serving your country as well.”

“What she really believes in is our Constitution and not the political whims of society,” he added.

‘Flag burners, rioters, anti-police radicals, and anarchists’

Few of the Trump supporters FRANCE 24 spoke to, however, listed the Supreme Court as a top issue. Instead, they, like the president, stressed the campaign’s core themes: jobs, “law and order”, ending illegal immigration and generally battling what they describe as the Democrats’ “radical left” agenda.

“Joe Biden has surrendered his party to the flag burners, rioters, anti-police radicals, and anarchists,” Trump said from the podium, amid his familiar roster of jibes at “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie”, and Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among other opponents.

When asked what brought he and his family to the rally, Noah Cappabianco immediately replied: “One, I don’t believe in democratic socialism.”

Jennifer, another Trump fan who gave only her first name and said she was attending from her home in “small town” central Pennsylvania, about an hour north, said the main issue influencing her vote was the “literal destruction of America”.