By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
At New York’s Madison Square Garden, Donald Trump abandoned all pretense. He as much as said to those who call him a fascist, “Yes I am, and I’m so sure my voters want it that I’ve gathered the greatest collection of profane, nasty, lying authoritarianism-lovers ever assembled. I’ll ride it to November 5 and as far beyond as necessary to get what I’m owed.”
After that fascist jamboree (Bulwark: tinyurl.com/seeMSG4u), Trump’s mouthpieces spent the next day doing damage control: the “joke” about Puerto Rico being garbage “doesn’t represent our views,” his campaign tested. But it does. They’d seen and approved that guy’s script, removing only one word (Bulwark: tinyurl.com/oneword4u). Also, recall that Trump delayed help for two years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. When he finally showed up, he tossed paper towels like dropping pennies into a beggar’s bucket. That’s what represents his views. The day after the Garden’s cesspool of nonstop negativity, Trump ignored the Puerto Rico insult and called it “a lovefest” (Daily Beast: tinyurl.com/cesspool4u).
Team Trump selected each of those speakers, including the scumlord whose profane, foul screed against Hillary Clinton (is she running?) ought to have offended at least some of the cultists in attendance. Instead, there were cheers of delight.
None of the participants disavowed the unending invective. Trump upped the pollution with his usual lies about FEMA, Kamala Harris, immigrants and voting, adding his Hitlerian “enemies within” incitement. Plus attacks on the press and promises to prosecute anyone who disagrees with him. It’s unimaginable that that hate-filled display attracted undecided voters. Aimed strictly at his base, it wasn’t intended to. Hopefully, it turned away not only Puerto Rican Americans but anyone with at least a thimbleful of decency.
The degrading offensiveness of that rally, not coincidentally held in the same venue as an overtly Nazi one in 1939, should have repulsed all Americans. The latter was attended by the ideological fringe, while thousands of citizens protested outside. Its swastikas were overt, not implied. Nor was it organized and promoted by a former “president” of the United States, the convicted criminal re-choice of a once-respectable, not-fringe political party.
If that celebration of rage, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and torrential lies didn’t nail, screw, and padlock the coffin of Trumpism; if he’s elected or, like last time, “elected,” the America envisioned by its Founders no longer exists, and deserves everything that will follow: an economy wrecked by Trump’s reckless tariffs, except for companies willing to pay him tribute for exceptions; inflation worse than the post-covid era, back to normal now under President Biden; handing the world, our allies, to global adversaries; trade wars; actual — not made-up by time-wasting, performance-preferring House Republicans — weaponization of government; malicious mistreatment of immigrants, legal or not; abuse of minorities and women; Project 2025 theocracy; loss of health care for millions; unsustainable increases in wealth inequality at the cost of helping anyone below millionaire status; and the adverse effects of losing millions of long-standing, hard-working, taxpaying, community-supporting but undocumented residents.
My grandchildren don’t deserve it, though. Trumpists’ grandchildren don’t, either. Yet it’s they who’ll suffer. For Trump, as he said about the possible hanging of Mike Pence, it’d be another “So what?” That he’s the best that today’s Republicans can offer ought to dishearten everyone who considers themselves conservative. Or patriotic. Not to mention Christian. Or decent. That rally was an ineradicable stain on America. Contrast it with Vice President Harris’ positivity and inclusivity, Tuesday, on the National Mall, attended by 75,000 people, cheering for decency, not its opposite (X; tinyurl.com/final4u).
Am I angry? Damn right! It’s my country, too. Republicans used to be better than this. Americans used to reject authoritarians and their lies. With Vice President Harris, we might get it back. If Trump wins, it’s over. His venomous hate-fest at MSG removed any doubt.
On the other hand, the democracy we’re trying to save might not exist anyway. Not since our Mitch McConnell-packed Supreme Court handed elections to the ultra-richest and neutered the Voting Rights Act. Not since America’s oligarchs concluded crossing Trump would be unprofitable, whereas there’d be no retaliation from a President Harris, because she honors the idea of America. And they know how to get anything they want from Trump.
To wit: We’ve learned that the billionaire owners of the L.A. Times and The Washington Post, the latter being Jeff Bezos, who does much business with the government, overrode their papers’ intentions to endorse Harris. It’s a window to the future, where political cowardice before a bully leads to totalitarianism. In the darkness of a cowardly press, democracy dies. Trump has been working it since before day one.
We’ve also learned that Elon Musk, whose PAC just ran an ad saying “We can’t have a ‘C-word’ in the White House (X; tinyurl.com/nowCthis),” is in regular contact with Vladimir Putin. Gifting China at Putin’s request, Elon shut down his Starlink communication satellites over Taiwan. Imagine what else he — and Putin, Xi, and Kim — would get away with under Trump, so easily manipulated by fake flattery from more powerful men.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
