ST. LOUIS, Missouri — "Politics ain't beanbag." or so the old saying goes. But the bare-knuckled brawling of politics no longer seems confined to the candidates competing in the arena. The scrum has spread to the spectators and participants in the stands.
Such was the case on Saturday at several caucus sites across Missouri. In high school gyms and on college campuses, Republicans who showed up to support Nikki Haley's bid for the White House were met with scorn, jeering, boos, and derision.
"All the Haley supporters were asked to step to the middle of the floor," Barb Rieder said after leaving the St. Charles County Republican caucus at the Francis Howell Central High School gymnasium. "And so now you've got 60 some people surrounded by 500 people who don't want you there. I believe there's a rule about intimidating voters. I felt intimidated. I know it wasn't a vote, but I sure as heck felt intimidated."
A similar scene unfolded where St. Louis County Republicans caucused in the Parkway West High School gym. When Laura Villa stepped forward to nominate Haley for president, the crowd turned on her.
Caucus chair Tim Jones, the former Speaker of the Missouri House, interjected and pleaded with them to show "decorum."
"We have to go through this in a proper, civil way," Jones said. "If we don't, the caucus will be terminated, and the state party will choose the delegates. That's the way it goes."
His warnings fell on deaf ears. The jeering continued.
The raucous caucus left Haley supporters feeling slighted and publicly shamed. And at least eight months away from November, many of them are not prepared to help re-elect Trump. According to NBC exit polling in North Carolina, a state Trump only won narrowly in 2020, 78% of Haley's voters would not commit to supporting the GOP nominee.
Trump coasted to easy victories in Missouri both times he was on the general election ballot. Still, there were signs of his support starting to erode after this year's nominating process played out.
"I recall going to a polling station in the past for my primary vote," Phil Schroeder wrote to 5 On Your Side in an email. "That was a lot simpler and less confrontational than [Saturday's] caucus proceedings."
During a lengthy delay, and in between tense exchanges between Haley and Trump supporters, Schroeder shouted to the crowded gym, "China and Russia are our enemies, not Democrats and Republicans!" He urged the crowd to unite together.
For him, American unity is more than an election year buzzword. It's deeply personal.
"My daughters are in the military, of course I'm biased," he said. "I don't want a hot war."
His daughter Abby was deployed on a Navy warship in the South China Sea after she graduated from the Naval Academy. His daughter Mia deployed to Poland with the U.S. Army after she graduated from West Point.
"That wasn't pleasant," Schroeder said. "Her group was training Ukrainians older than me to fight because the young guys are dead now."
Schroeder saw Haley as a stabilizing force, and Trump as a chaotic one. He chafed at unruly attempts to bully or silence some of his friends in the gym who showed up to support Haley.
"The whole process smacked of a pre-ordination of Trump as the nominee," Schroeder said after it was over. "Trump was a great idea in '16," Schroeder said. "But it's out of control now."
Donald Trump claimed all of the available delegates in that room, and in every room like it in 114 counties across the state.
Three days later, on Super Tuesday, Trump claimed hold of his status as the party's undisputed frontrunner, and the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee for president.
"We have a great Republican party with tremendous talent," Trump said Tuesday night. "And we want to have unity. And we're going to have unity."
Then, Wednesday morning, Trump wrote "Haley got TROUNCED," and mockingly jabbed, "I hope she stays in the 'race.'"
The rift between Haley's determined backers and Trump's base only appeared to widen after she bowed out of the race.
"We must turn away from the darkness of hatred and division," Haley told her supporters Wednesday morning, before she encouraged them to keep their independent streak.
"Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind," she told them. "It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that.
"At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away," Haley said.
Yet, many of her supporters felt turned away by the behavior of Trump's base.
"I had ordered a t-shirt from Haley that said 'permanently barred.' I mean, he permanently barred the Haley supporters from the Republican Party," Rieder said in disbelief.
"If that's how the Republican Party feels about us, then should they be surprised if all those voters went to Biden?"
Instead of bowing out, Rieder stiffened her gaze and strengthened her resolve as she started talking about her family.
"I have children and I have grandchildren, and it has to change if our country is going to be the country we want it to be," she said. "For that, we have to start talking to each other. We have to start including everyone when we're trying to to improve this country."
"This is the greatest country in the world, and I still believe that. I'm worried about it, but I still believe that," Rieder said with a quiver in her voice.
The retired Granite City Steel engineer now spends many of her weekdays working to help students complete their HiSET exams, commonly referred to as a GED.
"When I tried to talk to my students about how we change things and how you have to go through the process of changing a law and all those things, they said, 'Barb, that's going to take forever.' So I try to spend some time going, 'But yeah, it's important because we got to get this people's input and those people's input. And so we have to do it that way.'
"One of my young ladies said, 'Maybe we should just blow it up.' And I said, 'Well, I don't think that's the right answer to this.' But after after my experience this past month, it makes me consider her option. It makes me consider that.
"We have to do something different," Rieder said. "I'm not advocating blowing anything up, but I am advocating that good people need to be more involved. I need to be more involved. The people that love this country need to be more involved, because we're letting a lot of people railroad us, and we need to stand up. We need to be involved."