DOn Wednesday evening, Donald Trump held his first rally since becoming the target of an assassination attempt for the second time in just a few months. In a sports arena outside New York City, he told his supporters that “these encounters with death” had only toughened him.

“God gave me life. It must have been God, not once, but twice,” Trump said to loud cheers from the enthusiastic crowd.

The former president brought his usual smorgasbord of lies, exaggerations and dark and racist rants to Nassau Coliseum in the Long Island suburbs, just seven miles from the New York City border. It was a daring choice of venue, considering the election is just 48 days away and New York is not on either major party’s priority list.

The state is reliably Democratic; the last time a Republican presidential candidate was elected was in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was re-elected. Even Nassau County, where the arena is located, voted for Joe Biden in 2020 with 54%, while Trump was elected with 45%. And recent polls in New York State show Kamala Harris comfortably ahead by double digits.

But Trump clearly had a method behind his madness. Long Island, the leafy suburbs that extend east of the city, have moved to the right in recent years and become a kind of incubator for the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement.

A large crowd flocked to the Colosseum, filling the arena after hours of waiting. The fans seemed to be vying with each other for the most provocative MAGA attire.

Men wore T-shirts reading “Women for Trump.” Several supporters carried slogans reading “Fight, fight, fight,” which gained popularity after an assassination attempt on the former president in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in July.

One man wore a black T-shirt engraved with a gold ball and the words: “Just the tip, I promise.” A group calling itself “Japan for Trump” distributed leaflets proclaiming that “God chose Trump” and stressing that the former president was immortal and had been George Washington in a previous life.

Security was tight: When Trump arrived, helicopters buzzed overhead, police dogs patrolled wooded areas and the entire grounds were searched – a lesson learned from the defeats suffered by the US secret service after the shootings in Butler County and last Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida.

Despite the shock of recent weeks, Trump took to the stage at the Coliseum with his trademark swagger. The arena that once hosted Elvis Presley, Elton John and the Beach Boys now had a new star to welcome.

“We will win New York!” he boasted to a packed arena, ignoring polls that suggested the opposite.

Trump returned to the thorny subject of Springfield, the Ohio city that was the subject of his racist, dog-eating remarks at last week’s presidential debate, reiterating his denigration of Haitian immigrants there as “illegal aliens,” even though most of them actually live there legally and with temporary protected status.

He then mocked the mayor for offering English lessons and interpreting to Haitian children in local schools.

“What the hell is wrong with our country,” Trump stammered, vowing to add fuel to the fire by personally visiting Springfield within the next two weeks. A long tirade about the heinous acts of “immigrant criminals” followed.

The 90-minute speech included other dystopian stories and untruths. If Harris wins in November, he claimed, New York State will be “like a third world country, if it isn’t already.”

Trump also resorted to his pet tactic of voter denial, lying that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen,” calling the fight against climate change a “green hoax” and claiming the planet is getting cooler, when in reality this summer was the hottest ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere.

When he returned to a popular topic – denigrating the “fake news media” – the way the crowd responded and supported him was remarkable.

“Fuck you, media!” shouted a man within earshot of the Guardian.

“We’ll get you later!” said another.

“Enemy of the people!”

The last time Trump had the nerve to enter New York territory for a rally was in the South Bronx in May. The event was designed to highlight Trump’s support among black and Latino voters – a theme he repeated on Wednesday, claiming his standing with both groups is “completely over the top and they don’t know what to do about it.”

What he didn’t say was that recent polls suggest his support in those critical circles could wane after Harris enters the race.

So much bombast. So much admiration. Trump was back in the state he once called home — at least the MAGA part of it — and he loved it.

“I can save New York in three months,” he boasted. “November 5th will be your liberation.”