{"id":33972,"date":"2024-10-27T21:09:12","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T02:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33972"},"modified":"2024-10-31T21:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T02:05:48","slug":"trump-fills-madison-square-garden-with-anger-vitriol-and-racist-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=33972","title":{"rendered":"Trump fills Madison Square Garden with anger, vitriol and racist threats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump<\/a> and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he is fighting \u201cthe enemy within<\/a>\u201d and again promised to launch \u201cthe largest deportation program in American history\u201d, amid incoherent ramblings about ending a phone call with a \u201cvery, very important person\u201d so he could watch one of Elon Musk\u2019s rockets land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event at Madison Square Garden, in the center of Manhattan, had drawn comparisons to an infamous Nazi rally held at the arena in 1939. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris\u2019 running mate, said<\/a> there was a \u201cdirect parallel\u201d between the two events, and the Democratic National Committee projected images<\/a> on the outside of the building on Sunday repeating claims<\/a> from Trump\u2019s former chief-of-staff that Trump had \u201cpraised Hitler\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was certainly a dark tone throughout the hours-long rally, with one speaker describing Puerto Rico, home to 3.2m US citizens, as an \u201cisland of garbage\u201d; Tucker Carlson mocking Harris\u2019 racial identity; a radio host describing Hillary Clinton as a \u201csick bastard\u201d; and a crucifix-wielding childhood friend of Trump\u2019s declaring that Harris is \u201cthe antichrist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Puerto Rico comments, made by Tony Hinchliffe, a podcaster with a history<\/a> of racist remarks, were immediately criticized by the Harris-Walz campaign. Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican popstar who has more than 18m followers on Instagram, wrote in a post<\/a>: \u201cThis is what they think of us. Vote for @kamalaharris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That could prove problematic in Pennsylvania, where the majority<\/a> of the swing state\u2019s 580,000 eligible Latino voters are of Puerto Rican descent. Both campaigns have been trying to appeal to Latino voters in the final weeks of the campaign, and Harris had visited a Puerto Rican restaurant<\/a> in Philadelphia earlier on Sunday, where she outlined plans to introduce an \u201ceconomic opportunity taskforce\u201d for Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pugnacious mood didn\u2019t change once Trump began speaking, as the former president quickly repeated his pledge to \u201claunch the largest deportation program in American history\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration and claimed that a \u201csavage Venezuelan prison gang\u201d had \u201ctaken over Times Square\u201d, which will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York<\/a> landmark. The former president also stated, wrongly, that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina because \u201cthey spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s usual dystopian threats were on offer, as the 78-year-old expanded on his claims about \u201cthe enemy within\u201d \u2013 a group of political opponents that he has said<\/a> he will set the military on if elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not running against Kamala. I think a lot of our politicians here tonight know this. She means nothing, she\u2019s purely a vessel that\u2019s all she is,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious radical-left machine that runs today\u2019s Democrat party. They\u2019re just vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s appearance at Madison Square Garden \u2013 home to the New York Knicks and Rangers, and venue for countless legendary acts including Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and John Lennon\u2019s last concert appearance before his murder \u2013 marks the culmination of his peculiar love-hate flirtation with his native city. Despite the fact that he has no chance of winning New York state \u2013 Harris is 15 points ahead in the Five Thirty Eight<\/a> tracker poll \u2013 this was his third rally here this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May he made an audacious attempt to woo Black and Latino voters in the south Bronx<\/a>, just a few miles from his childhood home in Queens. Then in September, he pitched up in the New York City suburbs in Long Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Trump intends by staging this trilogy of seemingly pointless electoral appearances is unclear. He has used his rambling speeches to take a nostalgic walk down memory lane to what he sees as the golden days of his life as a New York real estate magnate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he has also portrayed New York City in the most dark and dystopian terms, as a rat-infested haven for drug addicts, gangs and \u201cillegal aliens\u201d housed in luxury apartments while military veterans shiver on the sidewalks. His toxic language is perhaps a reflection of his bitterness towards the city of his birth, which in separate court cases has convicted him of 34 felonies<\/a>, found his company the Trump Organization guilty of criminal tax fraud<\/a>, and found him personally liable for sexual abuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday Trump again criticized his home town, claiming that the Biden administration had forced \u201chundreds of thousands of really rough people\u201d into the city and telling New Yorkers, despite police saying crime has declined<\/a>: \u201cYour crime is through the roof. Everything is through the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pugnacious tone had been set earlier in the afternoon, when several of the opening speakers made obscenity-laced and hate-filled remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hinchcliffe\u2019s comments about Puerto Rico \u2013 he also made lewd sexual innuendos about Latina women \u2013 were met with big laughs from the crowd. A comment from radio personality Sid Rosenberg that Hillary Clinton is a \u201csick bastard\u201d was similarly well received, as was Rosenberg\u2019s claim<\/a> that \u201cthe fucking illegals get everything they want\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Rem, a Republican politician who the Trump campaign described as a childhood friend of the former president, called Harris \u201cthe devil\u201d and \u201cthe antichrist\u201d, to loud cheers. Rem later took a crucifix out of his pocket and announced that he was running for New York City mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As soon as Trump announced<\/a> his intention to stage a rally at Madison Square Garden just days before the election, critics leapt to point out historical parallels with one of the most notorious events in New York history. On 20 February 1939, just seven months before Germany invaded Poland, the pro-Hitler German American Bund held a mass Nazi rally<\/a> in the exact same arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organizers chose George Washington\u2019s birthday as the date to parade their vision of an Aryan Christian country dedicated to white supremacy and American patriotism. They erected a giant portrait of Washington, which they flanked with swastika flags alongside the stars and stripes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 20,000 American Nazi sympathisers attended, many dressed in storm trooper uniforms and giving the Sieg Heil salute. The \u201cF\u00fchrer\u201d of the American Bund, Fritz Kuhn, told the crowd that America would be \u201creturned to the people who founded it\u201d, and decried the \u201cJewish controlled press\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hillary Clinton had noted the similarities between the two events in an interview with CNN last week, and at a rally in Nevada earlier on Sunday, Walz was happy to continue the comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDonald Trump\u2019s\u2002<\/a>got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,\u201d Walz said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don\u2019t think that he doesn\u2019t know for one second exactly what they\u2019re doing there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump campaign reacted furiously to the accusations, describing Clinton\u2019s comments as \u201cdisgusting\u201d. One of the few people to reference the 1939 rally on Sunday was Hulk Hogan<\/a>, who emerged to wrestling music, spent several seconds struggling to rip off his shirt, then claimed: \u201cI don\u2019t see no stinkin\u2019 Nazis in here\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a night of fire and fury, it will be up to the American voters to decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anger and vitriol took center stage at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, as Donald Trump and a cabal of campaign surrogates held a rally marked by racist comments, coarse insults, and dangerous threats about immigrants. Nine days out from the election, Trump used the rally in New York to repeat his claim that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30975,1842,2710,1230],"class_list":["post-33972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-racism","tag-threats","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33974,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33972\/revisions\/33974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}