What Donald Trump Supporters Think About Hillary Clinton, in Their Own Words
We conducted interviews with Trump supporters; they do NOT like Hillary Clinton.
-- It was midday in August in Daytona Beach, Florida, but the burdensome heat did nothing to suffocate the enthusiasm of the crowd gathered to see Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Retired Gen. Michael Flynn had warmed up the audience members by calling Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the "enemy camp." Then, in what has become a tradition at GOP rallies since the Republican National Convention, chants of "Lock her up" echoed through the Ocean Center.
Amid the chants, a man seated behind the press pen yelled out, "Waterboard her!"
This was no anomaly. At the mere mention of Clinton's name, supporters have yelled out, "Traitor!" and "B----!" and some even called for her to be killed.
Demonization of a political candidate is not a new phenomenon, but at Trump rallies, it's literal. "She's the devil," the Republican nominee said at a rally in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 1.
Polling suggests both candidates are not popular with the majority of the American people. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this month shows 59 percent of Americans see Clinton as not honest and trustworthy, with 62 percent saying the same about Trump.
But interviews conducted around the country over several weeks suggest another, stronger sentiment that Trump supporters feel toward Clinton: hate.
Here are some of those supporters in their own words:
Judy O'Quinn
Judy O'Quinn is a retired pharmacy worker. She's a Christian, the kind of woman who touches you when she talks. She went to see Trump in Abingdon, Virginia, a few miles from where she lives in Russell County. When chants of "Lock her up" broke out, she joined in excitedly.
Does she believe Clinton should be imprisoned? "I think she belongs in jail," O'Quinn said. Asked for what, exactly, she laughed. "Where should I start?"
Asked what she thinks of Clinton, O'Quinn said, "I'm a Christian, a lady of faith, and she scares me ... I think that if she's elected that we can kiss our country goodbye."
O'Quinn said that she never cared for Bill Clinton and that her dislike of his wife stretches back decades.
"I have followed them — ever since she [came] into the limelight, I've researched and read a lot of history," she said. "There's just so much darkness, a cloud of darkness over them, with people disappearing that don't agree with them."
Asked how she would feel if Hillary Clinton becomes president, O'Quinn paused, eyes wide, swallowed, and said, "I'm just going to do a lot more praying."
Terry Dyer
Terry Dyer, of Wilmington, North Carolina, is a self-proclaimed "loudmouth." She took it upon herself to clear space at Trump's rally there, making sure there was a place for people to walk through. She's on disability and walks with a cane. But what she lacks in mobility, she makes up for in opinion.
"I think it's real suspicious, the number of people that die around her," Dyer said, silver bob moving as she spoke. "Any other citizen in this country that has done half of what she's done would be in jail. Or she should be indicted. What is she even doing running for president when the FBI is investigating her? It makes no sense."
Her feelings about Clinton also predate this presidential run.
"I never liked her, never trusted her, any woman that would stay with a man that would do the things he did to her has no pride, no honor in herself," Dyer said, shaking her head. She said of Clinton's presidential bid, "I think this was her ultimate goal or she would've never stayed with him."
Asked if her problems with Clinton are personal or policy based, Dyer said, "I don't think it's personal when you tell a family that has lost a young man in Benghazi that it was a movie. That's not personal, that's a lie."
But she ended by saying, "I really truly believe she's an evil person. I really do. I don't think she can be trusted."
Pete Desmond
Peter Desmond is a contractor, also from Wilmington. Before the rally began, he had been chanting "Lock her up", emphasizing each word slowly, deliberately, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses off his face.
"You know what, if I'm lied to, you lose my trust," he said. But he doesn't necessarily believe Clinton belongs in prison — yet — conceding, "That's a jury's decision."
But if it depended on his opinion alone, prison is where she would be. "That's where she belongs, yeah. Ten years would be great. She could rest and contemplate and get three squares and a cot."
He used a word that has often been thrown around with Clinton. "She's an enabler," he said. "When she enabled her husband to go on and carry on the way he did with his women ... if she wouldn't stand up, then it's just for her political gain."
Told that many people consider her the victim in her husband's infidelity, Desmond said, "She enabled him. You sit down as a couple, and you work things out, and if it's not in your favor to stay with that person, then you take the alternate route of divorce and move on."
He added, "I don't want to deal with that in the White House."
Susan Baker
Susan Baker is a retired attorney who lives in Larkspur, Colorado. She was at Trump's event in Colorado Springs in late July. She said she grew up in Chicago, comes from Democratic roots and has voted for both parties — in 2012 going with Mitt Romney.
For her, dislike of Clinton is personal.
"I can't possibly like her as a person. How could anyone like her as a person when she did what she did in Benghazi?" she said. "What kind of person would do that? That's not a political issue. That's not a Republican/Democrat issue. That's not a liberal/conservative issue. That goes to the quality of her personhood."
Baker added, "She is a disgusting person."
She called Clinton's candidacy a setback for women and, like many others, said her distaste stems from Bill Clinton's affairs.
"I think it's, honestly, the fact that she could turn her back on what Bill did and abuse the women that she did after the fact. I found that pretty reprehensible," she said, referring to Hillary Clinton's attempts to discredit the women who claimed harassment or assault by her husband.
Baker said, "What she did to those women was really disgusting, something that I can't forgive her for."
Rick Pace
A veteran with an impressive mustache, Rick Pace went to see Trump in Des Moines, Iowa, about an hour's drive from his residence in Chariton.
Proudly bearing a "Veterans for Trump" sign, Pace said he worries about a Hillary Clinton White House.
"I'd be scared to death of what's going to happen to us. My Second Amendment right is very important to me, and I've been shooting ever since I was old enough to, and for them to take my guns away ..." he said, trailing off.
Told that Clinton has never said she wants to repeal the Second Amendment, as Trump has claimed, Pace said, "You don't think she won't? I think she would in a heartbeat."
Asked to describe Clinton in one sentence, he said, "She's a b---- that doesn't have any political agenda at all."