GREELEY, PA — The first booth inside the entrance of the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, held the weekend of October 12, offered attendees a place to register to vote. 

The booth had flags up calling for people to vote, and a sign that read, “30% of Pennsylvania hunters are NOT registered to vote—hunt or be hunted,” with “hunt” crossed out and “vote” written in its place. 

“We have a lot of hunters in Pennsylvania,” said Tanya Rivoles, who was working with the booth. “Unfortunately, some of them are real back-woods-ers, like us, and they don’t want to really get that involved.”

“So that’s why we’re going to them,” Rivoles added. “Because if we can get their votes, then we can win this one.”

The Rod of Iron Freedom Festival is a “non-denominational event to celebrate our Second Amendment,” according to the event’s website. It’s a project of the Rod of Iron Ministries, a church founded by Pastor Sean Moon, son of Unification Church founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Now in its sixth year, the festival wears its politics on its sleeve. Trump’s name is everywhere: on flags, on billboards, worn as shirts or hats by its attendees. The festival’s speakers—described on its website as “patriots making a difference”—included prominent Trump-administration figures such as former national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn and former acting director of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan. 

For festival attendees, the chance to spend a day surrounded by people who share their values was part of the event’s appeal. 

Rivoles, who described herself as a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights, said, “I’m here because I knew I could be around people that were going to be supportive of what I’m interested in.”

“It gives you a positive feeling,” said another attendee, Frank, who came with his friend Ken. “It gives you a positive hope.”

Hosted in an election year, conversations turned to voting. 

Ken and Frank disagreed about whether Trump would win the upcoming election—Frank thought Kamala had the lead; Ken said he “still had hope”—but both saw it as crucial that the country protect its values. 

Trump is going to lose the election, but “to each his own,” said Frank. “We gotta protect our family, we gotta protect our values, make sure that some transgender doesn’t go in the same bathroom my daughter goes in, that kind of stuff.”

Liberals and Democrats “don’t respect our values,” said Ken. He said he knows times are changing, but that not everything has to change. 

“MAGA, make America great, what’s wrong with that? I just don’t get it,” he said. 

Rivoles came to the festival with her sister, Cindy Miller, and her dog, Agnes the Big Red Republican.

“We are here to try to make sure that America stays like this,” Rivoles said. 

“Stays the way it used to be,” Miller agreed. 

Miller said that low-income people and seniors get hit really hard by the current economy. She’s retired and her husband is disabled and says the previous three years have drained their savings 

“We’re living day to day, now, and it has to change,” she said. “We can’t afford four more years of this kind of administration.”

Festival attendees had the opportunity to hear about the failures of the current administration, and the promise of one to come, in speeches given under a large white tent at the festival’s heart. 

“We’re going through a takeover of this country by a very hardcore, socialist, Marxist left, there’s no [other] way to say it,” said Flynn, giving a keynote speech during the festival’s opening night. 

A festival attendee asked Flynn what role he might play in a successive Trump administration. “Is there any chance that should the election go in a positive result, you would get your rank reinstated and sit at the head of a military tribunal, to not only drain the swamp but imprison the swamp and on a few occasions execute the swamp?” he asked. 

The question brought applause from those in the room and circumspection from Flynn. 

“Your sentiment is like a lot of people that I speak to around this country,” Flynn said. That sentiment is about accountability, he said—and while it was important to hold people accountable, first we had to win. 

“We win, and then ‘Katie bar the door’,” said Flynn, using a phrase warning of trouble ahead. “Believe me, the gates of hell—my hell—will be unleashed.”

Speakers at the festival brought stories of violence at the Mexican border to Northeast Pennsylvania. Aside from former ICE acting director Tom Homan, who gave a much-anticipated address, other speakers included retired ICE special agent Victor Avila and NewsMaxTV border correspondent Jaeson Jones. 

The specter of another kind of violence hung over the festival as well—occasionally, literally, on flags and posters showing Trump’s upraised fist and bloodied ear in the aftermath of the assassination attempt in Butler. 

Reverend Sean Moon referenced the attempt in a prayer he gave to open the festival. He said, “Just like the hearts of all the American patriots that appeared in this room, Your strength and Your spirit and Your courage was exemplified on J13, with President Trump standing up again, after the assassin’s bullet failed by your mighty hand.”

Ken from Lake Ariel, who brought his grandson to the event, said the past four years have been “terribly expensive” for people, and that he’s stopped taking trips down to New York City. “You don’t feel safe there anymore.”

Lawful gun owners weren’t a problem, but it was “the villains, the criminals” who were the problem. He had served in the military, and “they didn’t care how much ammunition I carried there. Matter of fact, they kind of told me what I was going to do.”

“We’re not for political violence,” said Frank’s friend Ken. “I’m not for that. But I’m going to protect my family if it comes to that, as they’re letting all these criminals into the country.”