Tom Carpenter, a tall man wearing a skull on his T-shirt, stood behind the raging anti-Trump protest with a smile on his face, a wad of cash in his pocket and a box full of buttons that said, among other things, “F*ck Trump.”

“F”ck Trump” was everywhere: on buttons like the ones Carpenter was selling, on T-shirts, on signs and in the chants and speeches of about 300 demonstrators who came to the Nicholas J. Pirro Convention Center to protest a rally held by presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday. Every time someone yelled “F*ck Trump,” protesters cheered.

“The guy is obviously racist and misogynistic,” Carpenter said. “He wants to build a wall that’ll cost millions of dollars and won’t ever happen because he has absolutely no policy ideas besides building the freaking wall.”

Carpenter works at King Weasel Custom Buttons, a local Syracuse store that produces custom buttons. As a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Carpenter also had anti-Ted Cruz and anti-Hillary Clinton buttons as well.

He said he sold the anti-Cruz and Clinton buttons to Trump supporters and is giving 20 percent of the profits to Sanders’s campaign.

“It’s a pretty funny right?” Carpenter said. “It’s a little subversive way of sticking it to the Trump people.”

A version of Carpenter’s grievances against Trump were shared by almost all of the protesters.

“He’s racist.”

“He’s a bigot.”

“He’s anti-immigrant,” protesters say over and over a again.

Steve Tonas and his three children — two boys and one girl between the ages of 5 and 8 — walked through the protest to get inside the rally. Tonas, a custodial worker at City of Syracuse Department of Parks and Recreation had each of his children carrying copies of Trump’s latest book, “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.”

Tonas, clad in a camouflage baseball hat and black sunglasses, is a Trump supporter and a self-proclaimed 9/11 truther.

“I’ve been a 9/11 truther for years now,” Tonas said. “Trump is the only one that has had the cojones to say that 9/11 was an inside job and that’s why Jeb Bush left the debate — he couldn’t handle questions about 9/11.”

Trump has never specifically said that 9/11 was an inside job, but he did say that then-President George Bush knew the attack was coming in a November interview with CNN.

Tonas has been following Trump’s career since 1989. He said he likes that Trump is a successful businessman and hopes that Trump will use his “business genius skills to do for America what he he’s done for himself.”

“He’s the symbol for prosperity, that ultimate American dream,” Tonas added.

Student Association President Aysha Seedat organized and led a group of about 30 students from Syracuse University to the protest. She said she did so as a student and was not attempting to represent the university.

As a Pakistani Muslim, Seedat said she has dealt racism and bigotry herself, especially after 9/11. She added that she wanted to inform people of Trump’s racism and bigotry because “he preys on people that aren’t very well-educated.”

“He feels threatened by people who look like me, but I’m well-educated and know well enough that his racism will not make our country better,” Seedat said.

Jerry Lotierzo, a local activist, said he specifically does not want to Trump and the public to think that Trump’s brand of politics is accepted in Syracuse. He added that he wants to world to know Syracuse will not accept Trump’s racism and bigotry.

“I don’t like him one bit,” Lotierzo said. “He’s fascist and scary as hell.”

Published on April 16, 2016 at 8:14 pm

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu