[The Federalist] DALLAS, Texas ‐ It’s only fitting that the first sentence out of President Trump’s mouth at his Dallas, Texas rally on Thursday night was about the luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton."I am thrilled to be here, deep in the heart of Texas, where we just opened a beautiful, new Louis Vuitton plant," Trump said from the American Airlines Center podium.
Wealthy, beautiful women with designer purses is in fact what many Texans think of when they think of Dallas. That and the nutty, sprawling highway interchanges. As one "Keep America Great Rally" attendee, Dan told me, "The difference between Dallas and Fort Worth is that in Dallas they call fish ’sushi’ and in Fort Worth they call it ’bait.’"
Despite its reputation for flash, Dallas is not an elite bubble of a city, which was reflected in the 20,000 people from a variety of ethnicities, economic classes, and age groups that traveled to see the president this week. Dozens of supporters began lining up outside the venue on Tuesday, and waited in line more than 50 hours to get in. Thousands more watched outside the arena.
I spoke to people who traveled for hours across the state, even out of state, from Austin, Canton, Colorado, and Las Vegas. They were from all over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, from the big suburbs, the small communities, and the Southern Methodist University campus a few miles away. Like many Texas cities, Dallas may be blue, but those huge highways make it extremely accessible to a lot of red. Its neighboring county, Tarrant County, hasn’t voted for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson won his home state in 1964.