Harris rallies thousands at historic Carrie Blast Furnaces with one final strong message: Go vote

At exactly 6 p.m. Monday, the DJ who’d been pumping up the crowd of thousands awaiting Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ arrival at the Carrie Blast Furnaces made a misstep: He played “Y.M.C.A.” A collective groan rose up from the gathered throng.

You’ve got to feel for the Village People. All the band wanted back in the bell-bottom 1970s was to sing a few disco songs. Their signature goofy hit “Y.M.C.A.” survived the brutal disco backlash – nobody saw that coming. For decades, the tune sparked joy wherever it was played. From baseball games to weddings, people jumped to their feet and started doing that funky arm dance whenever they heard the song’s opening chords.

Well, no more. “Y.M.C.A.” has become a favorite at Donald Trump’s MAGA rallies, a fact apparently unknown to the pre-party DJ at Harris’ event. He played about 45 seconds of the song. A few people halfheartedly performed the obligatory arm dance – muscle memory, apparently. Then the DJ stopped before switching to something else.

Why are we beginning our story on such an important political event by focusing on a 46-year-old song? We just watched a video clip of Donald Trump dancing to “Y.M.C.A” at his Grand Rapids, Michigan, rally. This is breaking news. “YMCA” is the only thing the two campaigns had in common Monday night.

Harris spoke for less than 10 minutes, mostly urging her supporters to vote. Trump spoke for … well, let’s see. It’s 2 a.m. on Tuesday now, and he’s still talking. (We’re watching him on CNN.) It’s been almost two hours now.

Harris hurled no insults. As for Mr. Trump? Well ….

We’d intended to write an ordinary political story on Harris’ rally, mention the notes of history (the rally took place in the shadow of a blast furnace that went online in 1907, while Teddy Roosevelt was president), quote several of the speakers as well as people in the crowd. Yada yada, yada.

But time slipped away. We got caught in the slow-moving crowd leaving the event — the campaign estimates the crowd at 15,000. Then we offered a lift to an Australian reporter who writes for a news organization called Crikey. He was going to call an Uber. No way we were letting anyone who works for Crikey take an Uber.

So we got to the “office” at midnight, and now we’re too tired to write. Besides, we have to be up in a few hours to cover the elections (and vote). So we’ll sum up the rally in pictures.

PUP was lucky to snag a pass to the front row shortly before Harris spoke, so we photographed a few of the vice president’s supporters once things got underway. Their reactions say more than we could do so with words.

We will say this: Monday’s rally, part of a last-day Pennsylvania blitz by Harris, was intentionally joyful. Lots of music and dancing. The speeches were upbeat. We walked through the crowd and talked to several people who used the same phrase while summing up their feelings about the election’s outcome. It’s a phrase we’ve heard quite a bit the past few days: “nauseously optimistic.”