It’s 2:30 P.M. on a Friday at Jammer’s, a provincial sports bar located next to a Syracuse suburb’s highway department’s gravel pile, and the 8 foot tall FIRE HOCHUL sign is hanging on by a thread. Literally, almost — it takes five people to duct tape it back into position, just in time for the entrance of Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau county executive and Republican candidate for governor of New York. Blakeman is at Jammer’s for what was billed on his social media as a “Pre-Game the Trump Rally Celebration.” Donald Trump is speaking at the Oncenter in Syracuse later today at a rally in support of Blakeman’s candidacy.
The 200-odd supporters in attendance, most of whom are white and on the upper side of middle-aged, put down their pizza and meatballs from the free buffet to stand and cheer as Blakeman makes his way up to the stage. Blakeman, whose ex-wife married Paul McCartney and reportedly donated $18,000 to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection campaign, rose to power in Nassau County for his staunch opposition to mask mandates in the post-COVID era, and his platform is primarily based on his opposition to Hochul, especially on criminal justice reform and immigration. He blames immigrants for crime, for job losses, for taking public benefits. He wants to end cashless bail, send more 16- and 17 year-old children to prison by repealing the Raise the Age Act, increase the use of solitary confinement in state prisons by repealing the HALT Act, and enact harsher penalties for repeat offenders.
He starts by thanking the prior speakers, including Joseph Cairo, the chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party, who was disbarred in 1994 for misusing client funds; Todd Hood, running as Blakeman’s lieutenant governor, who as sheriff of Madison County has directed his deputies to assist U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents with the enforcement of federal immigration law; and Joseph Hernandez, the Republican nominee for state comptroller, who compares himself and the GOP ticket in the upcoming election to heroes storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.
Blakeman, who refers to Jammer’s as “one of the great sports bars and entertainment venues in the area,” calls Gov. Hochul “the most pro-criminal governor in the United States of America,” mainly due to her support for immigrants seeking asylum in New York. “She has spent $8 billion of your money on illegal migrants,” he says, although the New York State Comptroller’s office actually reports emergency spending for asylum seekers at an estimated $2.71 billion from 2023 to August 31, 2026. All total, he says that asylum-seekers get $81,000 in benefits, a figure he has often cited on the campaign trail, though that number actually refers to a NYC Comptroller’s report on total service costs for unsheltered individuals as a whole.
“Now, if one of you lost your job, as a New York citizen who worked hard their whole life, you would get less benefits than someone who came into our country illegally,” Blakeman says, promising a Day 1 executive order to declare New York no longer a sanctuary state. The crowd cheers. “Send them home!” shouts one attendee. “Get rid of the thieving illegals!” yells another.
Blakeman, who was Nancy Reagan’s driver in the early 1980s, goes on to tell a story of two 12-year-old girls who won a soccer championship. After taking a photo with Blakeman in his office, they ask, “We don’t think it’s fair, and we don’t think it’s safe, that we have to compete against boys. We don’t want them in our locker room. We don’t want them in our bathrooms. What are you going to do about it?” It was this interaction, Blakeman says, that convinced him to sign an executive order banning sports teams with transgender women from using county facilities. Because transgender athletes make up a miniscule portion of total athletes (for example, the NCAA estimates only .002% of college athletes are trans), the executive order was never enforced, and it was struck down by a New York judge shortly after a roller derby team challenged it in court.
Blakeman’s speech ends naming enemies: “We are ending the craziness of far-left communist Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul, the people who hate America.” The crowd cheers and gathers for photos. A man with a Coors Light, a faded tattoo of a wizard on his arm, and a Trump/Vance 2024 hat speaks with one of Blakeman’s sons, describing his idea to stop voter fraud and save America: “We’ve just gotta get rid of the ballots.” Later, when asked if he’ll work for his father, the son smiles: “I don’t know. First, we’ve gotta win.”
It’s 5:30 p.m., and on one side of downtown Syracuse, the Oncenter’s seats are filled with Trump supporters, with nearly a thousand more filing in to stand on bleachers and wait shoulder-to-shoulder for the president to arrive. Across downtown, the anti-Trump “Not In Our House” rally organized by the CNY Solidarity Coalition at Clinton Square has reached nearly 2,500 attendees, with more arriving by the minute. Progressive and Democratic groups and individuals of all stripes are in attendance, complete with protest signs (“Vote Blue No Matter Who,” “IMPEACH,” “Release the Trumpstein Files”), heckling of passing Trump fans (“Your king is a pedophile!”), and raucous chants of “No justice! No Peace!” and “The people united will never be defeated!” Nobody mentions Bruce Blakeman or any other of the other Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections — they’re all here for Trump.
Parked across Salina Street from the protest is a truck from the Worker’s Center of Central New York. Jessica Maxwell, the center’s executive director, is on hand to explain their mission while passing out steamy bags heavily laden with massive freshly-made tamales and chicken paches. “We’re standing with the immigrant workers who are under attack right now,” she says. “These tamales were all made by three families who’ve had a member of their family detained as a fundraiser to support their legal fight.” A few years ago, a similar fundraiser sold maybe 400 tamales; this year they sold more than 1,200, even with the preorders closing before the announcement of Trump’s visit. “We know people love their tamales, but it’s more than that. People want to show their support, and that’s why they’re doing it.”
As a grassroots labor-rights group focused on organizing low-wage workers, Maxwell describes how their members actually grow the communities they belong to. They start businesses, grow the economy, expand the culture — “and that’s not a problem,” she says, “that’s a solution. That’s beautiful.” Anti-immigrant rhetoric, she says, often comes from people who “are really frustrated that their basic needs are not being met even though they’re working really hard.” It’s the ultra-wealthy and corrupt politicians — and plain old racists, she adds — who foster this sentiment to distract from their complicity in a system that is actually targeting the working class. They make immigrants a scapegoat, she says, as “a vulnerable population that is at a disadvantage to speak out and correct that record.”
Two men dressed as Crusaders flying the American flag and a banner with a shining crucifix walk by. Their intention, it appears, is to rile up the protesters, and they are successful — a man in a medieval knight’s helmet carrying a large No Kings flag approaches. “Fellow warriors, here to fight the good fight?” he asks the faux-Crusaders. They recite the motto of the medieval Templar Knights and repeat “Deus Vult,” a Latin phrase that has been taken up by white supremacist and other far-right movements — Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s was barred from Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration after being labeled an “insider threat” due to the Deus Vult tattoo on his bicep. The Crusaders are asked to leave by rally marshalls, and as they trudge off, No Kings Man gets the last word: “In veritas victoria,” he gloats at them — “in truth is victory.”
On stage, speakers include local union leaders, activists, and politicians. Dr. Clemmie Harris, a professor at Utica University and a 2022 Democratic primary candidate for NY-22, leads the crowd with an evolving chant: “I am — somebody! I will fight against fascism because I am — somebody!” Onondaga Nation General Counsel Joe Heath speaks of what he calls the three pillars of the Trump administration: “Corporate and billionaire greed, the removal of all meaningful environmental laws and policies … and of course, systematic racism and white supremacy.” He points at the Jerry Rescue monument, commemorating Syracuse abolitionists’ Oct. 1, 1851 rescue of an escaped slave being held in the police station after the Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. “This is what Syracuse does,” Heath says with pride. “It resists!”
Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens, who met recently with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to talk about reinvigorating Democratic voters, speaks on the values that define Syracuse: “We are a community that embraces diversity. We are a community that fights for equality and equity. And we are a community that embraces inclusivity.” She goes on to demand equal housing, support for SNAP benefits, and for ICE to be dismantled.
Maurice “Mo” Brown, the democratic socialist candidate for State Assembly who ousted the long-time Democratic Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli in a primary upset earlier in the year, takes the microphone to loud cheers. “Big corporations and big money politics try their hardest to get us down,” he says, “but you guys have my back, and I appreciate that.”
After his speech, Brown moves through the crowd to take photos and speak with potential voters. When asked what he would say to Trump, his answer is quick and decisive: “Leave.” He laughs and continues. “Democracy was founded here, and what he’s doing to democracy is disgraceful.” He speaks on how he’d try to convince Trump fans to vote for him: “They agree that this casino capitalism has got to stop. They do not like Elon Musk. They do not like Jeff Bezos… When I talk to those voters, they get it,” he says, “but it’s just so hard getting through to them. There’s a full propaganda machine that’s trying to make sure their voice is not heard.”
A group sporting Palestinian keffiyehs and red shirts emblazoned with the logo for the Party for Socialism and Liberation lingers near the back of the crowd. While the organizers of the Clinton Square protest have no plans for their action to extend outside of the one city block they obtained a permit for, PSL has other ideas — they’ve advertised a march to the Oncenter to start when the main protest concludes, permits not withstanding.
Jennifer Kenific, an organizer for PSL, thought hard before making a decision not to bring her four-month-old daughter to the action for fear of the chaos Trump supporters might bring to the streets of Syracuse, a city with strong ties to abolitionism and radical politics. “Trump’s got that fake populism, right?” she says. “We have so much more in common with immigrant workers than we do with billionaires and Donald Trump.”
PSL and the CNY Solidarity Coalition didn’t coordinate on their actions tonight — PSL can be seen as “too radical” by the broader Democratic groups — but tonight, it feels like they agree on almost everything. Kenific hoists her sign, which says “THE PEOPLE WILL DEFEAT TRUMP’S BILLIONAIRE AGENDA.” She says, “All these people are here, and they want to do something.” They just need someone to lead them.
It’s 7:05 p.m. and anti-Trump protesters are chanting “F*ck you, pedophile!” (Trump has not been formally accused of nor convicted of criminal charges related to pedophilia.) directly outside the War Memorial, as close to the Trump rally as they can get without inciting mass arrests. As the rally ended at Clinton Square, many of the nearly 2,500 protesters joined PSL’s march toward where Trump was set to speak, filling the streets with their bodies and chants of “Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go!”
The crowd packs in close to the barricades at the corner of Madison and Montgomery Streets. A dozen Syracuse Police Department officers line the streets behind the barricades, where they face taunts, jeers, and accusations of all kinds from the protesters: “You’re protecting genocide! How can you protect us when you’re protecting him?”
At 7:19, the president’s motorcade travels down Harrison Street, a long line of identical black SUVs, white vans, and ambulances with their blue and red lights spinning. The riot police begin to emerge, and protesters point out snipers on the roofs, police drones high in the sky, K-9 units on tight leashes, and what appear to be tear gas and pepperball guns. Undeterred, the chants gain strength: “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” and, bluntly, “Fuck Donald Trump!” Ads for the Nutcracker, a touring Christian music radio station, and the Hocus Pocus Taste-A-Long Experience flash across the Oncenter marquee while upside-down American flags, signs saying “ABOLISH ICE NOW’ and “BILLIONAIRES ARE THE MINORITY RUINING THIS COUNTRY,” and the LGBTQ+ Progress flag stand tall over the protesters in the street.
Running out of room at the intersection, the crowd spills down Madison Street to State Street, cornering the War Memorial and lining the edge of the Everson Museum of Art. A group of skateboarders nestles in the entrance along Harrison Street, overlooking the nearly-emptied Oncenter parking lot. They taunt one officer in particular, who they start referring to as Big Helmet. Another skater pops a kickflip, the crack of his board echoing like a gunshot.
On the sidewalk in front of the Equitable building, a woman named Lori in a blue and white trucker hat, large sunglasses, a keffiyeh and a visibility vest blasts protest music from a pair of speakers. Not everyone is happy about this: “Turn that music off!” yell some protesters from the crowd. A small group approaches her, flipping their middle fingers in her face and trying to unplug her speakers. She remains unfazed, slowly increasing the volume on Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “All Along the Watchtower,” until she eventually flags down a police officer to ask that her equipment be protected. The angry protesters slip back into the crowd, which only starts chanting louder to drown out the music from her speakers. Later, she says they accused her of being “a MAGA plant.” She sighs. “I told them they were a disgrace to the resistance.”
Eventually, Trump takes the stage inside the OnCenter. As his speech meanders on, the streets begin to clear. A few dozen of the more diehard protesters stick around to yell at the police, but they mostly end up kicking at the barricades and waiting around for something to happen. Rally-goers start trickling out of the Oncenter halfway through Trump’s speech — 8:45 or so — to make their way home.
“We’re pro-Trump, 100%,” says one man leaving the rally, his wife nodding next to him. “The last president, he had an open border for everybody around the world to come in here and rape and kill and do whatever they want.” Immigrants are taking lives, they’re taking water, they’re taking jobs, they’re taking everything. “Nobody’s saying they can’t come here,” the woman says, “come here legally — ” Her husband interrupts. “No. I don’t want anybody here. Call me racist, call me whatever you want. Stay in your own damn country.”
For the most part, the protesters ignore the leaving rally-goers. One Trump supporter bodies up to the protesters lining the barricades, though they successfully shout him off. He crosses the barricade line to try and shake hands with an officer, who promptly walks the man down, eventually standing chest to chest at the barricade. The man stomps off, wanting to get the last word with the protesters: “I’ll tear out your throats and feed it to your deadbeat dads!”
Lori is one of the last to leave the protest. She pulls her speakers in a cart behind her, vanishing into the night to the patriotic melody of the Star-Spangled Banner. A few Blakeman for Governor signs lay trampled in a doorway. A cop pulls out his phone, looks at it for a while, puts it away. From a distance, it sounds like he is watching football.
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