Trump in the Garden
Lice on Ice
Bryan Zepp Jamieson
October 28th 2024
Well, that whatever-the-hell-that-was at Madison Square Garden last night boiled everything down to just two possibilities: either Donald Trump completely lost the election, or America completely lost its mind.
I thought that comparing the Trump MSG rally to the 1939 German-American Bund rally was a bit over the top. Yes, I’ve been saying for some time that Trump and his followers are fascists with disturbing amounts of Nazi influence, but I figured that this would be their single biggest audience draw since the convention, and with barely a week left until election day.
And yes, it is unfair to compare the Trump movement to the German-American Bund. The Bund were far more restrained, diplomatic and less bigoted and vile.
The tone was set early, when comedian-in-waiting Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” So what’s the difference between a Puerto Rican and our Tony? Tony sank.
It wasn’t even the low point. It just set the general tone. The other speakers were the same B-listers that have worked so hard to keep audiences entertained while waiting for the always-hours-late Donald Trump: Hulk Hogan, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Don Junior and Rudy Giuliani. They all spewed their usual blend of bigotry and lowest-common-denominator demagoguery.
Junior claimed Trump was reclaiming his title of King of New York, which is kind of like the Chicago White Sox claiming they’ll be facing the Dodgers in this year’s World Series. Even before this debacle, Trump couldn’t get 20% of the vote in New York City. They hate him, and have for many years, and for many reasons.
I checked always-dependable Faux News for their take. They had one headline, “Trump supporters outside Madison Square Garden say deep blue New York is in play” (In their world, the Dodgers are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs) with a blurb about how “exhilarated” they were about the rally. I couldn’t help but note that that was from BEFORE the rally. I’m guessing that the ones that made it to the end of that marathon event were feeling…well, deflated.
I’m sure if you want to watch it for yourself, it’s all over You Tube by now. It’s only six hours long, and the Trump speech by itself is only an hour and twenty minutes. If it helps, think of it as cinematic history. No, not Leni Riefenstahl; I was thinking more of the role Alex played in “A Clockwork Orange,” when his eyes were taped open and he was forced to watch disgusting and vile acts of violence and depravity for hours on end while experiencing acute nausea.
Indeed, Trump’s rally makes for a good Ludovico technique of aversion therapy; watching that Trumpenorgy will give you a deep aversion to fascism, nazism, and hopefully ignorance and stupidity. Bit of a shame you won’t be able to watch a Rangers game ever again, though. Well, Alex had to give up Beethoven; the Rangers are no great loss.
The rally should have finished the Trump campaign off. If it didn’t, then it finished America off. The two cannot coexist. If there’s anyone out there who is doing the Olive Oyl bit and can’t decide between Trump and Harris, go to YouTube and watch the rally. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Seriously, if you haven’t made up your mind, watch that rally. If you STILL can’t decide, then maybe voting isn’t for you and you should go back to dithering for three hours each evening over what color socks you should wear in the morning.
Trump is ramping up the bile and nastiness at a time when he should be petting kittens and expressing approval of apple pie and baseball. Maybe kiss a few babies, only watch where you put those lips.
Instead, he’s showing America as the worst that it can be. If there is a floating island of garbage in America, then it took up residence in Madison Square Garden last night. And that island of garbage is sinking rapidly.
Last week I estimated Harris would win by ten million votes nationwide.
After last night’s spectacle, make that twelve million. A lot of people who watched that aren’t going to vote for Trump now.
