At Trump rally in Dallas, speakers say election was flawed, despite lack of evidence
The chairman of the Texas Republican party began his speech to the crowd at a Dallas rally Saturday in support of President Donald Trump cheering that the state had resisted efforts to turn it Democrat-blue.
By the end of his remarks outside Dallas City Hall, Allen West sounded like a military recruiter girding his men for battle.
West asked people in the crowd, who later filled at least three city blocks in a march, to raise their right hands and take an oath to defend the Constitution. “The fight is not over,” he said.
“You’re now soldiers in the army for America,” West said when the oath was complete.
Earlier, he led a chant in which the crowd repeated 12 times “stop the steal,” as merchants sold Trump T-shirts and beer can koozies from tables.
West criticized the role of news organizations in offering projections.
“The media does not dictate elections in the United States of America,” he said.
Dana Loesch, a former spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, said the presidential race’s outcome was not certain. The Associated Press and television networks have projected that Democrat Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 election.
“We will protect the integrity of the vote,” Loesch said. “We will.”
The New York Times reported recently that election officials in dozens of states said there was no evidence that “fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race.”
After listening to a series of speakers, demonstrators walked together in downtown streets.
No counter-demonstrators were apparent at City Hall. At street corners during the march, there were impromptu flares of anger. Some of those encounters focused on arguments about whether Black lives or all lives matter. A few passing cars played from open windows a song in which Trump’s name is preceded by a vulgarity.
Rally organizers had indicated that Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn would be among the event’s keynote speakers, but the sheriff did not attend. He canceled because of a personal family matter, said David McClelland, a Waybourn spokesman.
Jan Revels, who said she might otherwise spend a Saturday in her North Dallas yard, brought her 5-year-old son to the rally. Many mailed-in Biden votes were not legitimate, she said, though there is no evidence to support that.
“I want him to live in a country that is free and not socialistic,” Revels, 55, said of her son, who sat in a wagon she pulled toward a parking lot.
This story was originally published November 14, 2020 at 7:06 PM.
