“No dog whistles, no plausible deniability,” wrote one historian. “It’s a show of power and an another attempt to make this look and feel normal.”
By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams / Oct 28, 2024
From start to finish, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night was a torrent of bigotry and fascistic rhetoric, with the former president and a bizarre lineup of preceding speakers trashing Puerto Ricans and Palestinians, condemning the press, and casting their political opponents as a satanic “enemy from within.”
The New York City event, held on the second to last Sunday before the November 5 election, amounted to a closing pitch for a candidate who has pledged to wield the power of the federal government—including the U.S. military—against those he views as obstacles to his ascent to power and his political project, which includes a large-scale deportation campaign, massive deregulation for industry, and another round of tax cuts for the wealthy.
“When I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy,” Trump said Sunday, characterizing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and other party leaders as mere “vessels” for the “radical left machine,” which the former president called “massive, vicious, [and] crooked.”
“It’s just this amorphous group of people. But they’re smart and they’re vicious. And we have to defeat them,” said the Republican nominee, who falsely claimed the U.S. is an “occupied country” facing a “migrant invasion” that only he can stop.
While the rally featured familiar bloviating from Trump about crowd sizes and other petty obsessions—as well as absurd speakers such as Hulk Hogan and Dr. Phil—historians and other observers were horrified by what they described as the authoritarian ambitions that were front and center and shamelessly expressed Sunday night.
“The point here is that fascism is on full display, openly: no dog whistles, no plausible deniability,” said Kathleen Belew, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University whose work has focused on the white supremacist movement in the United States.
“It’s a show of power and another attempt to make this look and feel normal,” Belew added. “And it will not just magically disappear after the election, regardless of the outcome. In fact, it might be worth thinking through the very likely possibility that this kind of display suggests that this candidate and this movement don’t care that much about the outcome.”
One journalist called Trump’s event “the most overtly fascist mass rally in New York since 1939″—referring to a pro-Nazi rally held that year at Madison Square Garden—and criticized media coverage of the former president’s remarks, pointing to a now-changed USA Today headline as a particularly stark example.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) appearance at the rally made clear that Trump and the leadership of the Republican Party are in sync as the GOP pursues full control of Congress on November 5 and lays the groundwork to enact the former president’s agenda.
“We gotta get the congressmen elected and we gotta get the senators elected, because we can take the Senate pretty easily, and I think with our little secret we’re going to do really well with the House. Right?” Trump said late Sunday, pointing to someone in the audience—possibly Johnson.
“He and I have a secret,” Trump added, in remarks carried live by all three major cable news networks. “We’ll tell you what it is when the race is over.”
Other speakers at the rally included far-right pundit Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and billionaire Elon Musk, who has funneled roughly $118 million into the 2024 campaign in support of Trump.
“I’m not just MAGA,” Musk said, pointing to his black hat. “I’m dark, gothic MAGA.”
Interesting source. While Jake Johnson isn’t wrong, CD seems to attract commentors who show the left can be every bit as misinformed at their right- wing counter parts. Nearly every commenter seems to be convinced that anyone who votes for Kamala is “voting for genocide”.
Sure, many of the comments to that Common Dreams post spouted the ridiculous assertions of false equivalency of the parties, and sure there’s a whole body of left-sounding folks who take that view, but that does not mean “the left can be every bit as misinformed…” which is actually another type of false equivalency, mi amigo. I learned long ago that words don’t make your politics — your actions do.
Gotta disagree with you on this Frank. People of all political stripes can be (and often are) misinformed or at the very least, misinterpret things to fit a certain narrative. Maybe the right does it more but that doesn’t change the fact that people on the left do as well. To a large degree it’s simple human nature.
Okay.
Chris, I lean heavily Left of Center (where Center used to be) and have not been enamored with Harris nor do I expect a lot out of her that I will probably agree with. The Democrat party has leaned very far towards the rightwing in my lifetime, accelerating quickly since Reagan skewed the balance towards the Fascism that we are blatantly seeing now in Trump. Whom I consider the end result of the policies that man pushed.
This contemplation is for you. Can you imagine Trump doing what the wealthiest man in the US, Carnagie, did? Musk can’t nor (I’m guessing) will any of the other billionaires. It took divorcing Bill Gates for his ex-wife to start doing this with what she ended up with. I certainly can’t and I bet neither can you:
Noblesse Oblige Is Dead: Today’s Wealthy Elite Just Don’t Give a Damn
We need a cultural shift that views wealth not just as privilege, but as a duty to uplift society—reviving the forgotten principle of noblesse oblige…
https://hartmannreport.com/p/noblesse-oblige-is-dead-todays-wealthy-c53
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sealintheSelkirks
Rallies at Madison Square Garden
Quotations from October 27th, 2024, and February 20th, 1939
https://snyder.substack.com/p/rallies-at-madison-square-garden
If you like, see if you can tell which is which.
Once you have sorted it out, see if that makes anything better.
Donald Trump is working within a tradition, and he knows it.
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sealintheSelkirks
This article is what Fascists always want; people to be so afraid they run away. Running away from armed mobs or be attacked and die with your family isn’t much of a choice, is it?
But these legal Haitian immigrants KNOW what it’s like to live in the kind of hell-hole country that Trump & MAGA want to build since that IS why they left their home island for Springfield; to make a new life in what was supposed to be a better country.
Boy were they fooled about the latter, eh?
So…the US is going to become like Haiti, a failed state ruled by violent armed gangs (right wing militia and MAGAT cops in US parlance), blatant in-your-face lying by leaders, and fueled by greedy corruption all under dear leader Trump. How delightful is that to contemplate?
And poor Springfield Ohio will turn back into the dying small town it was before they came. Dead empty business buildings, shuttered abandoned homes, a place with no tax base to fix anything that this article talks about. Then those white folk left can get so hungry they really eat their f&&king cats and dogs, eh?
TRUMP LIED ABOUT THEM on purpose, and his bitch Vance doubled down justifying the lies? That was just…alarming? Despicable? What word can you think us to fully describe Vance doing that? I run out of words. And the stupid who voted for this…also out of words.
Fascism LOVES the under-educated. Even Trump publicly said so and he’s the head Fascist.
Haitian Exodus from Springfield, Ohio Might Be a Sign of Things to Come
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/08/haitian-exodus-from-springfield-ohio-might-be-a-sign-of-things-to-come/
I hope somehow they find a better place in one of the Blue States that value their contribution. And I hope the Blue States can handle the migration that is probably coming….and somewhat protect them.
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sealintheSelkirks