Trump supporters in Bradenton question the validity of Biden’s victory in election
Those at a pro-Donald Trump rally in Bradenton on Saturday said that unlike many of Trump’s opponents throughout his presidency, they will accept election results showing Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, but with one caveat.
“As long as they are doing it fairly,” said Wally Goodnough.. “And what you are seeing on TV is not fair, it’s a long way from being fair. There’s not a person out here that wouldn’t tell you that they wouldn’t accept Biden being president if it was done fairly.”
As Saturday’s rally began at DeSoto Square mall, the Associated Press projected Biden as the winner of Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, clinching a victory for the former vice president.
Among the estimated 2,500 people at the rally were members of the Proud Boys, which Biden denounced as a white supremacist group during the first presidential debate in September.
Like others at the rally, April Allison Culbreath had never heard of the Proud Boys before the debate.
“I had never heard of them so I looked into them and these guys aren’t racists,” Culbreath said. “They have Blacks, Haitians and Jamaicans. People are just people and not one person out here has uttered a single racial slur. It’s ridiculous and we are tired of being silent about it.”
Bob Vanreyendaem, president of the local Proud Boys Zone 5, said he was just as surprised as anyone when Biden called them a white supremacist group.
“He’s calling out the wrong group because 25 to 30% of the Proud Boys are people of color,” Vanreyendaem said. “We stand against hate and racism. We’re a men’s drinking club with a patriotism problem.”
Flying overhead of Goodnough at the rally was an American flag that hadn’t flown since the mid-1970s. It was the flag placed on his brother’s casket after he was killed while serving overseas while in the military.
“It’s been sitting in a closet since about ‘76,” Goodnough said. “It was time for it to fly again because it makes sense to let the people of this world know what the military has done for them. Today is all about showing that kind of respect for country and for Donald Trump.”
Trump supporters to a person said they would support the results of the election, but they expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the election and how it was run amid the coronavirus pandemic and the millions of mail-in ballots cast in states that had never used them before.
“That’s why we are out here today,” Culbreath said. “Protesting the election results that we 100% believe are fraudulent and crooked, just like the rest of the Democratic Party.”
Pennsylvania is of particular concern after reports that Republican poll watchers were being kept out, had their views blocked or were being kept too far away from the ballot counting process., Culbreath said.
“We know what we feel in our hearts that that is not the correct outcome,” she said. “All we want is to see what the actual real numbers are, the actual number of people that are alive who voted. We are here to show the president that we are still here and not giving up on him because we know he’s not giving up on us.”
Saturday’s protest was peaceful and though not as exuberant as last week’s pre-election rally, still very much a friendly affair.
“It was the American people of Manatee County and surrounding counties coming to join us to show support and love for our president., said Jeanine Goodnough.