President Donald Trump narrowly won Michigan in 2016. This year, his supporters are hoping for another victory in the state.
Rob Rodriguez, 50, is one of those supporters. He identifies as Mexican-American, lives in Howell, and is a big gun rights advocate. He thinks the governor's emergency orders since the pandemic have gone too far. He sees President Donald Trump as the only politician who truly represents his beliefs.
Michigan Radio's Tyler Scott spoke with Rodriguez at a gun rights rally on the grounds of the state Capitol.
On individual rights
"[Gun rights organizers] are all a very close-knit group of people. ... Our only goal is to make sure the second amendment doesn't get changed into something that's no longer recognized, nor an amendment that can't protect the rest of them.
Without the second [amendment], we'd lose the first real quick.
"When you meet a person who’s really strong for the Second Amendment, you're probably also looking at a person who is against the masks. That's not across the board.
There's a mask wearers and non-mask wearers. You see a mask wearer, and I think ... sheeple. Somebody who just listens to the government. And when the government tells them something, they believe it.
If this is the new normal, if that's the logic trail we're going to have, then we've got to allow the American people to manage their own health the way that they want to do it."
On division in America
"The idea of 'America First' as, like, a bad thing...when did that happen? I'm sorry, the whole time I was growing up, 'Keep America Great' was a pretty decent [idea]. We might not have termed it that way, but it was something we all believed in. And something happened, and it's a mystery to me.
And all this deep division that we have on a few things. I'll bet you we have more in common than we have that's not in common. When did we start focusing in on the things that we don't have in common? And who benefits from that? Not you, not me, not them. But the two parties do.
Okay? I’m sorry, but unless we wanna wake up and realize that these two parties are really playing brother against brother, sister against sister, and mother against daughter, then we’re going to have a hard couple of years. And mending it, good God, I don’t know. I just hope we can avoid any more bloodshed on anybody’s part."
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