In February of 1939, 22,000 Hitler fans held a rally in Madison Square Garden, on a stage draped with Nazi banners.
And Sunday night, Donald J. Trump held his own rally, hosting a lineup of people to rile up the rubes with some hair-raisingly disgusting, racist things to say, and plenty of lies. It sounds better in the original German.
Here’s the whole thing, if you’re that kind of masochist and have nearly five hours to kill.
There was “comedian” Tony Hinchcliffe, who said “there’s a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now, it’s called Puerto Rico, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” Laughter! These people think this shit is funny!
Puerto Rico is part of the US and its residents are American citizens, by the way. Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, Marc Anthony and Ricky Martin, with a combined 332 million Instagram followers, have all now endorsed Harris, by the way. The Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin endorsements came yesterday afternoon after Hinchcliffe’s little routine.
Hinchcliffe also said he and his Black “buddy” carved watermelons together for Halloween. More laughter from the MAGA crowd, haw haw haw! He finished up with, “Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that, they do, they do. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”
Remember when being racist was considered embarrassing, trashy and shameful? Or at least some Republicans pretended they thought it was? Those were the days.
There was Hulk Hogan, the former wrestler who lost his job after being recorded repeatedly saying the ‘N’-word, struggling to tear off his shirt. Sad.
There was Tucker Carlson, who called Kamala Harris “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor.” And David Rem, who called her “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Is this more hi-larious Republican humor? Or is it just a Nazi?
The event was a real who’s who of Trump butt-sniffers: his two failsons and Eric’s wife/RNC chair Lara; Rep. Byron Donalds (they played the Elvis version of “Dixieland” before he walked in, you can’t make this stuff up); Joseph-Goebbels-without-the-charisma Stephen Miller, screaming that America is for AMERICANS ONLY; Tulsi Gabbard, enjoying her new Republican friends; and Scientologist Grant Cardone, who told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” Because she is a prostitute, get it?
There was disbarred, bankrupt, un-condo-ed Roodles and his horse teeth. Hey, he has a hearing today to see if he can keep his Florida condo and World Series rings.
Off-putting creep Speaker Mike Johnson made an appearance.
There was Elon Musk, looking like one of those putty-colored boxing dummies, in a hat with MAGA printed in Nazi (Fraktur) font. Melania, who allowed her husband to kiss her on the cheek, said some words! Also Scott Lobaido, the MAGA artist who released 100 penis balloons outside of Trump’s hush money trial, remember him? He made a performance of doing some “art.”
Dr. Phil McGraw, who got his big break thanks to being hand-picked for platforming by Black billionaire Oprah Winfrey, was there to bitch about DEI. “This country was built on hard work, added value, and talent; not on equal outcome. Not on DEI.” Is that what we’re calling slavery now, hard work and added value with an unequal outcome?
And finally there was Trump himself, a couple hours late, who spent more than an hour and fifteen minutes spinning his usual lies. He claimed Joe Biden didn’t respond to Hurricane Helene because “They spent their money on bringing in illegal migrants, so they didn’t have money for Georgia and North Carolina and Alabama and Tennessee and Florida and South Carolina.” Zzzz. He lied that Harris was “border czar.” He lied that immigrants were illegally “dumped” in Springfield, Ohio. He lied that his Pennsylvania rally had “101,000 people,” and that Harris put a draft in place (there is no draft in place).
He referenced his “enemies from within” remarks, in case anyone was still not one hundred percent clear that he was talking about going after American citizens. “We're running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala, and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious, crooked radical-left machine that runs today's Democrat party, they’re just vessels, in fact they’re perfect vessels because they’ll never give them a hard time, they’ll do whatever they want, I know many of them, it’s this amorphous group of people. But they’re smart, and they’re vicious. […] When I say the enemy from within the other side goes crazy. They’ve done very bad things to this country so they are very much the enemy within.” Who is THEY? Why didn’t Trump take THEM down when he was president? It’s so hard to keep up with all these conspiracy theories.
He called Generals Mark Milley and James Mattis “weak” and “stupid.”
He repeated his wish to bring back the “Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” which would allow Trump to imprison anyone who says things about him he doesn’t like, or deport and imprison any immigrants. Better stay on his good side, Elon and Melania! Just kidding, he does not mean the white ones.
ICYMI, the Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by Congress when it was the French that they were worried about, and also journalists talking shit about John Adams. Franklin Roosevelt used the Alien Enemies Act to arrest and detain 9,000 Japanese, 11,500 German and 3,000 Italian immigrants in World War II, and also confiscate all of their property. The Sedition Act expired, but the Alien Enemies law is still on the books.
All of this is terrifying, and completely nuts, so the mainstream press’s jaws dropped. To yawn, that is!
Headlines:
WSJ: “Several Speakers Take Dark Tone at Trump’s MSG Rally”
New York Times: “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally.” Credit to the NYT, though, for running a very strong editorial on Sunday, with the all-caps, full-page title DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS ABANDON ALLIES BELIEVE HIM. Here is a gift link!
The Washington Post: “Trump rally speakers invoke racist tropes to mock Harris”
Associated Press: “Trump's Madison Square Garden event turns into a rally with crude and racist insults”
The headlines make it sound like somebody farted a few bars of “Brown Sugar,” or something. But no, it was a scorchingly racist five-hour fest of fascism. Would you have expected anything less?
We’ll have more on this rally throughout the day, because oh there are so many things to talk about in more detail. Maybe we’ll talk about it all the way until November 5!
Maybe we’ll never stop talking about it.
I figured out a while back that “I just don’t know enough about Kamala to vote for her” = “no damn way I’d let a colored woman be in charge.”
This is what we are up against. This is what's on the line when we vote.
I am going out to vote at noon today; early voting started in New York on Saturday but I was out of town. I am going there with purpose. I am going there to use my power in the way that I can to keep as many of these horrible people away from power.
We shall not win everywhere but we will win in many places as long as we all remember to mount up.
And in closing, I say to the quislings and ladder-pullers. This is what they think of you. No, you might think, "Oh I'm different, I didn't come here the "wrong way." My ancestors were here in the USA for generations! I'm not on the Democratic 'plantation.'"
No, they mean you too. They just use you as a fig leaf for their real beliefs; which are these. And blood libel never rests; once the original scapegoat is gone they'll move to new ones. And eventually, the bell will toll for thee.
I go to vote, in disgust for these people, but in hope for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Let's give these fascists no quarter on the ballot. Focus on the mission, not the distractions!