WILDWOOD – Pro-Trump troops stood on the boardwalk and looked down into the parking lot where the anti-Trump forces gathered.

It began.

The taunts.

The rants.

The hurling of insults back and forth.

“We came prepared,” an anti-Trumper barked into a bullhorn.

His nemesis shouted back words unheard.

“Have you ever slept with a woman?” a woman in the parking lot asked the young men leaning over the boardwalk railing in MAGA hats.

The Trumpsters barked back.

Passing out leaflets near the entrance to the convention center, Democratic candidate Robert “Turk” Turkavage passed out leaflets.

“It’s not about party,” said the former Republican, whom Trump turned into a Democrat.

He was fighting hard to hold a piece of turf in the midst of a MAGA circus, devoted to his own storyline as a counter to that of U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2), who was a Democrat newly anointed by Trump as a Republican.

“No, I want be attending the counter-rally,” he said, when asked, towering above the fray of Trump heraldry in the vicinity of the Wildwoods welcome sign.

The mini rally before the big rally and counter rally intensified.