I happened to be in Houston last week for the Trump rally, and never one to pass up an opportunity to check out what’s happening in the world, I decide to get in line with the thousands of others who were betting on the slim chance they’d make it through the door.

If there’s one thing you can count on in America while you’re standing in a line for hours on end is that you’ll have a handful of new friends by the time the wait is over. I had the opportunity to ask the folks around me why they were there, and I got the sense that people were genuinely concerned about progressive politics in America, that they felt they were searching for the heart of a country they remembered but could no longer see. And coming to a Trump rally was their way of doing something — anything — to stem the tide of change.

There were people of every race and nationality at the rally — Asians, Blacks, Hispanics. There were scores of blonde suburban moms, senior citizens, high schoolers and college kids. That was the biggest surprise for me. We are led to believe Trump supporters are mainly white, middle-aged men with a chip on their shoulder. At this rally, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The conversations I had were interesting. Nearly everyone I spoke to had a story of this “new America” that frightened them. One mother behind me told me her two twin daughters had a teacher in high school who lectured them daily on the evils of conservatism, and had a list of news sites that weren’t allowed to be referenced for papers, including Brietbart — a leading online conservative news site. The only sites that could be referenced were left-leaning.

Another mother told me her college-aged daughter wouldn’t come to the rally, anxious that she’d be outed on her college campus and she feared retribution.

“You think that sounds far-fetched?” the woman asked me. “Then you haven’t been watching news from a variety of sources. College campuses are now the incubators of liberalism and those with differing opinions are being silenced. Having a different opinion has become a difficult proposition in this country and you don’t have to look very far to find real examples.”

A couple told me when they wear their red MAGA hats to the grocery store, they are stared down by people with differing politics but are lauded and “told they are brave” by other conservatives in the aisles, who feel it’s common sense now to hide their politics.

The Trump rally seemed a place where people could come and collectively decry those forces, demand that change happen organically rather than by cultural brainwashing and wrangling.

I got the sense that the popularity of these rallies has little to do with Trump the man and more to do with their fear of what is happening in America. It’s not Trump they love; it’s their version of America they love.

I was rather amazed to make it through the door. 100,000 tickets had been issued for a venue that only held 18,000. In the end, 22,000 were seated and standing in the arena and 25,000 watched it on a screen outside. But then, this is Texas. Everything is big here, including the crowds.

The line to get a hotdog was 90 minutes and I waited with a Hispanic man from San Antonio and a newly naturalized immigrant from the Philippines.

“I love this country,” she told me. “I waited my whole life to get here and to become a citizen and I’m going to fight for this country with everything I have.”

The man from San Antonio was like a walking encyclopedia of politics. He seemed to know every political race being run in the country, the names of judges and congressmen and cabinet members. I don’t know one other person in my life who knows as much as he does about American government.

What does that say?

And then came this moment, which is the moment I will remember most from the day:

There were hundreds of people waiting in two lines for food, when suddenly the National Anthem began playing from inside the arena. Since people in the hallway felt somewhat removed from what was happening inside, they continued to chatter.

Suddenly, a big African-American man, who was the manager of the food court and standing behind the counter, said this in a booming voice that could be heard all the way down the hall: “Hey ya’ll! You will not talk while the National Anthem is being played in my beautiful country. Now be quiet and put your hands over your hearts right now!”

And we did. We all stood there, singing our hearts out, our hands over our chests, feeling each and every word, perhaps for the first time in a long time.

It was a special moment, really.

And that’s what I really took away from the Trump rally at the end of the day. Maybe, in all of this pandemonium, we just need to shut up and sing.

Or at least remember why we sing, in this land of the free and the home of the very, very brave.