{"id":3467,"date":"2019-10-08T18:46:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T22:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=3467"},"modified":"2019-10-09T02:14:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T06:14:37","slug":"meet-the-man-behind-the-trump-rv-thats-been-setting-up-around-ocean-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2019\/10\/meet-the-man-behind-the-trump-rv-thats-been-setting-up-around-ocean-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Man Behind the Trump RV That’s Been Setting Up Around Ocean County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata and a supporter next to his Trump Re-Election RV parked in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Rocky Granata, a 59-year-old Edison man, started out supporting Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, but little did he know the political journey \u2013 literally and figuratively \u2013 that life would take him on over the next three years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to see who Granata is supporting in 2020. His RV, with a trailer being towed behind it, is covered in Make America Great Again flags, a mural of President Donald Trump seated on top of a tank, and his image Photoshopped into the frame of a scene from \u201cRambo.\u201d There are also some other political symbols: a rainbow flag to show support for the LGBT community and a few classic political bumper stickers from elections long passed.<\/p>\n

\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata\u2019s Trump-themed RV in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata\u2019s Trump-themed RV in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI was just like Trump \u2013 a Democrat,\u201d said Granata, whose RV has occasionally gotten him into trouble after people complained about his presence in parking lots and beside highways. But in the Brick Plaza shopping center on Tuesday afternoon, a stream of fellow Trump fans stopped by, beeped their horns to show support, with many stopping to buy some Trump swag \u2013 hats, flags t-shirts \u2013 that Granata sells to support what has became a national tour of sorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was originally a major Bernie supporter,\u201d he explained. \u201cI traveled around the country and saw how he got robbed by Hillary.\u201d<\/p>\n

He traveled to rallies in support of Sanders, Trump and even Hillary Clinton in 2016 as he traveled across America. He said he saw gigantic turnouts for Trump and Sanders rallies, but \u201cHillary couldn\u2019t fill an auditorium.\u201d He said he was once offered money to attend one of her rallies, but declined.<\/p>\n

After Sanders was eliminated from the Democrat primary contest, Granata began looking more closely at Trump. He said he didn\u2019t always agree with some of the then-candidate\u2019s rhetoric, especially on immigration, but began educating himself on the inner workings of socialist versus capitalist systems of government and the issue-by-issue views of the candidates.<\/p>\n

It was in Billings, Montana where the idea for the decked-out Trump RV first came to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in Billings with an SUV that wasn\u2019t running too well when I met a Green Beret who served in Vietnam,\u201d he said. \u201cWe became pretty good friends, and he told me, \u2018you should be big and bold.\u2019 He helped me get the RV, and ever since that day, Aug. 1 of last year, I\u2019ve been traveling all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

That Green Beret was Robbie Robinson, who was profiled in a video interview<\/a> with the Billings Gazette in 2015.<\/p>\n

\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata\u2019s Trump-themed RV in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata\u2019s Trump-themed RV in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Rocky<\/a>

Rocky Granata\u2019s Trump-themed RV in Brick, Oct. 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

And with that, the journey began. Granata, originally from Brooklyn, said he\u2019s driven 50,000 miles over the last year, heading from rally to rally and occasionally coming back to his home state of New Jersey to catch up with the local scene. Things don\u2019t always go smoothly \u2013 there is the occasional person who lobs an insult or even a death threat \u2013 but he said he mostly finds support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot more positive than negative,\u201d Granata said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of love out there. Even when people tell me, \u2018get out of my town,\u2019 I tell them, \u2018no, we love you, just come over and talk and have a conversation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Pamela Grillon was one of the Brick residents who couldn\u2019t help but stop by when she saw the ornate pro-Trump display in the shopping center parking lot Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was supposed to be picking up my friend at HomeGoods, but when I saw the RV I just did a detour, and shook his hand,\u201d said Grillon, a real estate agent by trade. \u201cI really praise him for what he\u2019s doing. I\u2019m a Trump supporter one-thousand percent, with every fiber of my being, and I\u2019ve never been a political person before.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Granata, he plans on sticking around the Shore area for a little while before heading back out on the road, following Trump rallies across the country through the 2020 election cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more love for Trump even than there was three years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cHere in New Jersey, every time I come back, it seems like it\u2019s turning red. Personally, I think New Jersey is sick and tired of what they see.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocky Granata, a 59-year-old Edison man, started out supporting Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, but little did he know the political journey \u2013 literally and figuratively \u2013 that life would take him on over the next three years. It\u2019s not hard to see who Granata is supporting in 2020. His RV, with a trailer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[881,11],"class_list":["post-3467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-toms-river-life","tag-donald-trump","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/trump_rv_1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}