Tailgating, or parking lot parties, is a right of passage for sports fans. It's as part of football for some as the band, the cheerleaders, even the game itself. Over the years, tailgating has spread on to other sports, like Nascar, baseball, hockey, basketball and now concerts. Firing up the grill, parking the RV or truck, having a few cold ones and celebrating before an event even takes place is all part of the pregame ritual.
But with Donald J. Trump, we have reached a new area of the tailgate...a presidential rally.
According to the History Channel, Tonya Williams Bradford, co-author of a 2015 cultural analysis of tailgating published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the modern tailgate has roots in the fall harvest celebrations of ancient Greece and Rome. Those events were marked with music, community and plenty of food and drink for a final feast before winter’s onset. Nowadays tailgating is almost exclusively an American tradition. A hardcore as soccer (futbol) fans are around the world, you will be hard-pressed to find any tailgates before a contest. The American tradition may have begun in July of 1861. The History Channel states that residents of Washington packed picnic baskets and loaded into carriages and buggies for a day in the Virginia countryside. Rather than listen to the sounds of nature, they followed the sounds of artillery to watch from afar the first major showdown of the Civil War at the First Battle of Bull Run.
Union Captain John Tidball witnessed a “throng of sightseers” and peddlers “in carts loaded with pies and other edibles.”
That tradition then was taken to the football field and America never looked back. When Rutgers and Princeton played the first football game in 1869, it was reported that many fans sat outside eating and drinking.
Likewise, for the annual Yale-Princeton game, where newspapers said onlookers were seen sipping champagne pregame. It's a far cry from fans in Buffalo going through folding tables and shotgunning beers or ice funnels, but it was the start of something beautiful.
The best part about tailgating is you don't need a car or, in this case, a tailgate. Just people eating and drinking in a parking lot will do. That is what this Trump rally's tailgating was. This was a collection of people having fun while gathering around a single cause, not a sports team but a presidential candidate.
Although Long Islanders don't have an NFL team, they showed for decades they know how to tailgate with the best of the country when the late Jimmy Buffett used to come to town. Buffett at the beach was an annual event that took place at the Jones Beach theater and would bring out tailgaters by the thousands. Much like the Trump rally, there was no team to cheer for and there would be no winner or loser at the end of the day, but there was music, fun, and just an overall great feel to be surrounded by people who wanted to live life like you did.
Donald Trump is a polarizing figure to be sure, but during the parking lot party, you would never understand how people would dislike a man who brought so much joy to people. There were trucks upon trucks of food and gifts to buy. The parking lot was adorned with cars, trucks, and RVs covered in flags and stickers. You could see an American flag everywhere you looked, and much like a football team, the pride in wearing the or waving the flag shined through just as brightly.
In fact, the more you looked, the more you would have thought this was a sporting event. Everyone had the same sort of hat on, people wore outfits, carried signs and there were smiles and well-wishes throughout the crowd. Every so often, you would hear a random section of people clapping and it would be in thanks to a veteran or police officer walking by. This was not just a tailgate but a fun and entertaining way to support a presidential candidate, the likes of which no one has ever seen before Trump.
Just like a sporting event, there were all types of people, from all types of ages and backgrounds as well. The woman might have outnumbered the men, which you won't see at a football game, and there was no alcohol anywhere to be seen, but outside of that, you could convince anyone this was a regular tailgate party.
We may never see this again in history, and I, for one, have been to my share, or many people's share's of tailgate parties and this was right up there with the best of them. There is no denying the fun and excitement that Donald Trump brought to the Coliseum once he took the stage that night, but the party beforehand was just as electrifying for all the right reasons.