‘Hatefest’: Trump’s Long MSG Rally Was A Racist, Ugly Mess
Republican event reminiscent of 1939 Nazi meeting at the same historic venue
Donald Trump hosted a massive campaign rally in his hometown of New York City which was unabashedly racist, ugly, crude and unhinged.
The event — which featured a parade of speakers who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” amplified racist stereotypes of Black Americans, and more — was held at the storied Madison Square Garden. And for many, the Trump rally recalled an infamous meeting of an American Nazi group at the same venue in 1939.
The noxious Trump gathering went on for hours and for a time was carried live on such US networks as CNN and MSNBC.
Reaction to the event, on social media and elsewhere, was swift.
“Trump’s MSG event turns into ugly racist rally, speakers insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews,” MSNBC morning host Jonathan Lemire posted.
Anti-Trump Republican and TV personality Ana Navarro noted the contrast of how the major candidates for president are treating the nation’s Puerto Rican citizens.
“Today, @KamalaHarris released policy proposals to help Puerto Rico. On the other hand at the Trump rally, this is going on,” she posted, adding, sarcastically: “But nah. They’re not piece of shit racists who treat Puerto Ricans as second-class US citizens. It’s just our imagination. Puerto Ricans, pay attention! 🇵🇷”
The group Republicans for Harris labeled Sunday’s Trump rally a “hatefest.”
“This Madison Square Garden hatefest is the starting gun for January 6th 2.0. In the face of likely defeat, he is rallying his most ardent supporters—not to uphold democratic principles, but to resist them,” the group posted.
It was a view echoed by one of the most prominent congresswomen from New York.
“As you mentioned, this was a hate rally. This was not just a presidential rally. This was also not just a campaign rally,” said Democratic Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “I think it is very important for people to understand that these are mini January 6th rallies. These are mini ‘stop the steal’ rallies. These are rallies to prime an electorate into ejecting the results of an election if it doesn’t go the way they want.
“Because Donald Trump and that entire group of people on the stage, Stephen Miller, etc, do not respect the law of the United States of America. They either want to win this election, or they are using rhetoric of taking it by force,” she added. “That is what they mean, and that’s what they’re doing when they are inciting violence and hatred against Latinos, Black Americans, Americans who don’t have children.”
Trump’s niece, who has been a fierce critic of her uncle, was among many who saw the explicit similarities between Sunday’s rally and the rally held in the same place in 1939, organized by the German American Bund and featured a portrait of George Washington accompanied by Nazi swastikas.
It was a view echoed by Alexander Vindman, the author, retired US Army colonel and former White House National Security Council official who was a focus of the first impeachment of Trump.
“I’ve resisted calling Trump and MAGA fascist, mainly because I’ve understood fascism and Nazism as almost incomprehensibly evil,” Vindman posted. “But the reality is MAGA is today, who the Nazi were before they seized power. There is no better historical comparison to MAGA than the Nazi of the early 1930s.”
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