a night at the garden (11. 939)

With clear echoes of a 1939 held at the same venue advertised as a pro-America rally presented by the German-American Bund (see previously here, here and here), the Trump campaign and surrogates presented their one of their final (the US respects no concept of purdah) appeals with one full week left to try to secure votes, we are given a noteworthy look at the statements given that the committee to reelect Trump did not distance themselves from after taking exception with the characterisation of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage in the ocean” apparently levelled as the denizens cannot vote in federal elections but retracted as not to offend the diaspora of this historically misadvantaged territory, though not condemning racist language from the same presenter and successively crass and disturbing characterisations and threats by other speakers, including an appearance by disgraced former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Though many in the opposition and the media could draw the parallels to the late 1930s gathering above, the only explicit reference during the event was made by wrestler Hulk Hogan, making a dramatic entrance and exclaiming, “I don’t see any stinking Nazis here!”  The headliner teased about our “little secret” with the Speaker of the House, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions, ostensibly telling on himself and plans to declare a victory regardless of the outcome.