Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally echoes Nazi event there in 1939

A clip from the movie "Patton" plays before former President Trump speaks at a campaign rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. | Alex Brandon/AP

NEW YORK—Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally Sunday more than lived up to predictions that it would echo the Nazi rally held there in 1939. It was filled with vitriol and profanity-laced racist attacks against people the convicted criminal ex-president sees as political enemies but particularly aimed at Vice President Kamala Harris.

If anyone had any doubts before the rally that Trump and his MAGA followers are spearheading a fascist movement in the United States, those doubts were erased Sunday evening.

The rally, held in the heart of New York City, was designed to evoke memories of the big Nazi gathering held there by the German-American Bund in February 1939. At that event, the “American führer,” Fritz Kuhn, praised Adolf Hitler, who was then preparing to invade Poland. In recent days, Trump has been exposed, again, for similarly showering the fascist dictator. New York has the largest Jewish population of any U.S. city, just as it did in 1939, so the historic parallels between the two rallies were surely not lost on that community.

The hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican residents of the nation’s largest city also listened in shock as they heard their homeland was described as a “floating island of garbage” by Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian that the GOP hired to open its gathering.

Puerto Ricans are, of course, U.S. citizens, not invaders from the outside, as Trump has tried to portray them. When Trump visited the island in 2017 after Hurricane Maria, he insulted Puerto Ricans by throwing rolls of paper towels out to the crowd – people who were without power, food, or water and facing a daunting recovery effort.

The remarks about Puerto Rico on Sunday followed by just two days Trump’s claim that the United States itself was “the garbage can of the world” into which “more than 181 countries are dumping their criminals and mentally sick people from their jails and hospitals.”

Hinchcliffe didn’t limit his snide attacks to Puerto Ricans; he extended them to later include lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jewish people, Arab Americans, and Black people. Sexually explicit “jokes” were told about Latinos “making babies,” and Hinchcliffe talked about “carving watermelons” for Halloween with his “Black buddies.”

Racist and vulgar remarks by Trump are nothing new, but the statements unleashed Sunday surpassed anything ever heard before at a campaign rally in the United States, including even at the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden 85 years ago.

Many in the crowd ate up the remarks, laughing and cheering as they were delivered, but there are indications that the out-of-control rhetoric may already be hurting Trump with voters. There are hints in national polls that there is a last-minute break in favor of Harris among undecided voters sitting on the fence. Trump seems to have an absolute ceiling of 47% support, which may not be enough to win.

An ABC News / Ipsos poll released Sunday breaks the long deadlock in the major polls, with Harris leading 51 to 47% among likely voters and edging ahead slightly in several of the most critical swing states and among constituencies like Latinos, Black Americans, and women.

Several speakers referred to “f**king illegals,” and Trump himself repeated earlier claims he made about the U.S. being an “occupied country.” He also falsely claimed that “vicious Venezuelan gangs are invading our cities” and “terrorizing innocent Americans as they take over apartment complexes, especially in Aurora, Colorado.” City officials there said problems there were under control and that Trump has been vastly exaggerating the issue. In addition, there is no evidence of any Venezuelan or other immigrant gangs terrorizing other cities.

Law enforcement officials, including the FBI, note that crime among immigrants is far lower than it is among Americans born in the U.S. In fact, violent crimes in U.S. cities have been on the decline, those sources note.

David Rem, a Christian nationalist and Trump childhood friend, went up on stage waving a cross and called Harris “the anti-Christ.”

Sexism was also the order of the day, with businessman Bruce Cardone telling the crowd that “Harris and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” Right-wing radio host Sid Rosenberg described Hillary Clinton as “a sick son-of-a bitch.” Wrestler Hulk Hogan, meanwhile, made a lewd sexual gesture recalling far-right smears about Harris.

Fired Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson kept up the effort to rouse white supremacists to the polls, raising the specter of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

Trump has made no statements challenging the parallels between his rally and the 1939 Nazi gathering in New York, which was held at that time to intimidate the large Jewish immigrant population. He may be so desperate for votes that he does not want to offend hundreds or perhaps thousands of voters in swing states that actually do have Nazi sympathies.

Some Republicans, however, are among those who think Trump has gone too far with his hateful rhetoric. In the swing state of Pennsylvania, for example, the anti-Puerto Rican remarks could really damage his chances. Some four percent of the voters there are Puerto Rican, more than enough to tip the state in favor of Harris.

The disgraceful rally followed by only a few days decisions by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times not to endorse a presidential candidate. The Washington Post had a Harris endorsement already written but the editors were ordered by billionaire Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner, not to publish it. It seems that the cowardly billionaire’s concern for his money and profits trumps any concern he has for democracy. There are reports he fears losing a lucrative government contract awarded to his Amazon Web Services in 2021 if Trump wins and he had allowed his newspaper to take an anti-Trump stance.

Harris will deliver her closing arguments to the nation at a speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the same location from which Trump launched his coup attempt after the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. It is expected to draw a vision of America that is completely at odds with the dark, fascistic goals laid out by Trump at Madison Square Garden.

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CONTRIBUTOR

John Wojcik

John Wojcik is Editor-in-Chief of People's World. He joined the staff as Labor Editor in May 2007 after working as a union meat cutter in northern New Jersey. There, he served as a shop steward and a member of a UFCW contract negotiating committee. In the 1970s and '80s, he was a political action reporter for the Daily World, this newspaper's predecessor, and was active in electoral politics in Brooklyn, New York.