Trump to PROVE He's Not a Nazi...with Giant Rally at MSG

Campaign denies many, many similarities with admittedly Nazi rally in 1939

Oct. 25: Trump to hold MSG rally Monday … Harris campaigns with Beyoncé … Johnson fights for House control in New York and California … Progressives fear Harris’s strategy costing progressive votes …

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Former Pres. Donald Trump kisses the American flag without its consent. (Photo / Twitter.)

Former Pres. Donald Trump, is staging a rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden, site of the famous infamous 1939 Nazi rally.

Turns out, it’s all part of a genius Trump plan to convince people watching his Nazi rally that he’s not a Nazi. Politico reports this morning that the Trump campaign has been making a strategic effort to counter Democratic narratives about Trump’s fascism.

In fact, that McDonald’s photo opp? That was part of it. As if Nazis weren’t clowns!

The idea, Politico says, is to humanize Trump. As if humans can’t be Nazis!

That same plan is also why Trump will do an interview today with podcaster Joe Rogan, who’s not a Nazi but is curious about Nazis.¹

Senior Trump campaign aide Jason Miller tells Politico the idea is for Trump to “reconnect with people,” or volken. It’s not clear when Trump became disconnected from people. Presumably it was before he got caught discriminating against Black people in the 1970s.

Politico writes that “the campaign has tried to soften Trump’s image from that of a divisive politician defined by grievances to, instead, an amusing entertainer you’d wanna shoot the shit with,” or, for instance, who’d wanna shoot protesters with the U.S. Army.

So, given their not-a-Nazi plan, the Trump campaign was pissed this week when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who got more votes than Trump did, agreed that Trump’s a fascist and said he’s “actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939.”

Trump’s campaign called her remark “disgusting,” presumably the kind of disgusting that must be eradicated like vermin poisoning our blood. So let’s consider whether Sunday’s rally really will reenact that chilling, fucked up stain on the history of our country and Madison Square Garden, by comparing then and now.

The 1939 rally was staged by the German American Bund, which had members across the country who supported Adolf Hitler. By contrast, Trump’s supporters want to put vermin in militarized camps for poisoning our country’s blood.

As for Hitler, Trump yesterday said he’s “just the opposite” of Hitler. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be Hitler. Former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly reports that Trump said he wanted generals like Hitler’s — apparently unaware they tried to kill Hitler — because Trump wants total loyalty to him personally rather than to the law.

And it’s not like the 1939 rally leader, German American Bund Bundesführer Fritz Kuhn, wanted to be Hitler. As Swastika Nation author Arnie Bernstein explained in 2019, Kuhn “wanted to be the Hitler of America.”

The 1939 rally included posters that read, “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." Pretty sure MAGA has already reenacted that one multiple times.

Speeches in 1939 railed against “job-taking…refugees.” Well, that certainly rings a bell! The right-wing casting department swapped in Hispanic job-takers for the Jewish ones targeted in 1939, but at least the 1939 Nazis acknowledged that they were refugees! So we’ll call that one a wash.

Some speakers referred to Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt as “Rosenfeld.” As if a political leader in 2024 would resort to hateful name-calling!

Other familiar aspects of the 1939 rally include racism and sexism — "The spirit which … built our country is the spirit of the militant white man” — and rewriting history — "It has then always been very much American to protect the Aryan character of this nation."

As Kuhn said, "Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it!" Now does that sound in any way like Trump, who’s repeatedly told people to “Wake up” — and not just Sleepy Joe — and praises Nordic countries and wants to make our country great again?

In fact, Trump’s message on Sunday reportedly will be that Democrats have broken the country.

However, in 1939, when a protester began yelling, the crowd beat him up, breaking his nose and blackening his eye. There’s no evidence Trump wants to reenact that kind of thing. Except this from 2016:

So, it’s not that MAGAführer Trump is reenacting the 1939 rally on Sunday; he’s been reenacting it since 2016!

And he’s not German, he’s of German descent. And his father wasn’t arrested at a 1939 Nazi rally, he was arrested at a 1927 Ku Klux Klan riot targeting Catholics.

Also in Trump’s defense, the 1939 Bund rally did not include leading officials from either party. But on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will be at Trump’s side (see below).

EPILOGUE The 1939 protester was Isadore Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber from Brooklyn. When the U.S. entered World War II, Greenbaum enlisted in the military and fought the (German) Nazis. Who lost.

Why Harris Is Working the Nazi Angle

On Thursday, TFN wondered why Vice Pres. Kamala Harris is so relentlessly bashing former Pres. Donald Trump in pursuit of wavering Republican voters — rather than promoting massive, life-changing plans to motivate non-voters.

The night before, we now know, the Harris campaign held a swing-state focus group that reportedly showed undecided voters are really worried about just how fascist Trump will fasc if he’s allowed back in the White House.

The focus group participants were asked about former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly’s assessment that Trump’s an Adolf Hitler wannabe inclined to use the American military against dissenters.

Their response? They didn’t like it! From Politico:

“...participants found Kelly to be credible and trustworthy and his criticism of Trump … made some of them think twice about the former president.

“...persuadable and undecided voters in recent battleground state polling … said that the former president’s pursuit of ‘unchecked power with no one to stop him’ is one of their top concerns. They also found that one of the concerning messages for them on this point is that ‘those who worked closest with Trump while he was President have left and said he should not be President again because of the risk he poses to national security.’”

And that was before they knew about today’s Politico scoop! At least a dozen former Trump administration officials signed onto a letter (unreleased except to Politico, so not super-helpful) supporting Kelly’s claims:

“We applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term. … Everyone should heed General Kelly’s warning.”

The signatories include several national-security veterans: Former Assistant Secretary of Homeland [sic] Security Elizabeth Neumann; former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor; and former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, Olivia Troye.

To share the dangers of national Christo-fascism with voters who might not follow politics, Harris today is campaigning not in a battleground state, but in Texas, with Willie Nelson and Beyoncé [insert knowing topical reference here].

The idea is to create viral moments at today’s rally that will be carried by star power onto social media … and educate low-interest voters in battleground states about what their state will be like if it becomes Texas.

“Texas is the stage and the audience is the battlegrounds,” a Harris campaign person told Politico. (Although secretly Democrats are hoping Texas is a battleground, too.)

Why Mike Johnson Will Be With Trump on Sunday

Everyone in New York and California whining that the election only matters in swing states is hereby invited to gently zip their coastal pie-holes.

In fact, New York and California are likely going to determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the House of Representatives on Jan. 6, 2025, and for two years after that.

That will determine who’s speaker of the House, which could determine whether Donald Trump can steal the election. And even if rePresident Trump wins fairly, a Trump represidency will be a very different thing with a Democratic House than a Republican one.

Here’s why New York and California hold the cards. They’re not swing states, but they have multiple purple House districts. Between them, the two states have enough close races to make the difference in who controls the House.

And that is why Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will be at Trump’s side Sunday for the reenactment of the 1939 German American Bund rally. Here’s the Wall Street Journal:

“House Republican leaders hope Trump-generated enthusiasm will give much-needed momentum to a handful of freshman New York Republicans, including Hudson Valley's Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro…”

But that Trump-generated enthusiasm is getting dragged down in New York by Trump-generated lack of enthusiasm.

New polling shows Harris is building her lead in New York. She now leads Trump 58% to 39%. And as for Harris’s much-fretted-about weakness with young voters and voters of color? Not in New York, the new poll found.

 "[T]he increase in Harris' lead comes from Black, white and Latino voters, as well as younger and middle-aged voters,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said. Harris is also increasing her lead among women, which was already gynormous.

All of which means that Trump’s coattails may not be enough to get Lawler and Molinaro across the New York finish line. Which might mean Democrats take the House and Trump can’t steal the presidency.²

Lawler’s facing former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) (campaign site here) who lost his 2022 race thanks to the disastrous Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) redistricting. Molinaro, meanwhile, has been going full Trump — right down to pet-eating claims — against his challenger, Josh Riley (campaign site here), a lawyer and former counsel to Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) on the Judiciary Committee.

Trump Calls America “The Garbage Can for The World”

In remarks that were historically accurate but utterly misunderstood by their speaker, former Pres. Donald Trump last night called America “the garbage can for the world.” Complaining about immigrants, Trump said:

“We’re a dumping ground. We’re like a garbage can for the world … That’s what’s happened. We’re like a garbage can. You know it’s the first time I’ve ever said that. Every time I come up and talk about what they’ve done to our country, I get angrier, and it’s the first time I’ve ever said ‘garbage can,’ but it’s a very accurate description.”

The instinctive reaction, as always, is to be repelled by Clownfuck McFascism for dehumanizing immigrants and shitting on America. And obviously that’s his intent and he deserves all the opprobrium in the world for it.

But it also shows the profound depth of Trump’s ignorance about America. Because what he intends as an insult is, historically, just the opposite. Historically, there’s a sense in which Trump is right, a sense in which it’s a compliment, and a sense in which it’s beautiful.

Because immigrants have been compared to trash before, in a soaring tribute to America that’s been known to and loved by Americans new and old for decades. It sits at the feet of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse³ of your teeming shore.

Emma Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” was written to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, where the poem now appears. It was an explicit rejection of Trumpism, a century early.

Lazarus rejected toxic, stupid notions of power. The statue, she wrote, would be “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame⁴, With conquering limbs astride from land to land,” but instead, “a mighty woman with a torch.”

And Trump’s penchant for gold on everything from toilets to arches? Lazarus’s mighty woman doesn’t give a shit: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"

The idea of America — and, yes, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), America is about ideas — is that we don’t need Europe’s rich and powerful, its storied pomp. We see the humanity of Europe’s refuse, Trump’s garbage. These, the castoffs, the huddled masses, these are the real Americans.

And Lazarus was writing explicitly about refugee immigrants. She was literally an advocate for immigrants. Specifically, fighting for Jewish refugees fleeing religious persecution in Russia.

Today, Lazarus’s timeless love letter to the world’s wretched refuse, its loving invitation to make America their home, is held by the American Jewish Historical Society.

Progressives Immediately Vindicate TFN

Just hours after TFN yesterday pleaded for Vice Pres. Kamala Harris to shift from pursuing Republicans to energizing the vast armies of poor people who’d vote if they thought things would change, a ton of news stories emerged quoting progressives with exactly that message.

(Your dutiful TFN has got to use its vast power more responsibly.)

“[T]here are a hell of a lot more working-class people who could vote for Kamala Harris than there are conservative Republicans,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) accurately told the AP. “She has to start talking more to the needs of working-class people.”

And the New York Times didn’t just quote grouchy progressives, they did some jaw-dropping number-crunching on the stats from Harris’s campaign:

“Ms. Harris has campaigned four times with Liz Cheney, the Republican former congresswoman, stumping with her more than with any other ally. She has appeared more in October with the billionaire Mark Cuban than with Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers and one of the nation’s most visible labor leaders.”

And it’s not just that conservatives are getting more attention. In some cases, progressives are getting none.

“The tent is big enough for a guy who got us into a war with Iraq [former Vice Pres. Dick Cheney], and then the tent is not big enough for a Palestinian to speak for two minutes on the DNC stage,” Gen-Z for Change Executive Director Elise Joshi told the Times.

Sanders told the Times he’s concerned about the working-class voters he’s hearing from — at his rallies for Harris! — who say they don’t hear her talking about them. They cite issues like raising the minimum wage and expanding Medicaid to cover more than the non-teeth parts of your body.

Another devastating, heart-breaking paragraph from the Times:

“She has centered her economic platform on middle-class issues like small businesses and entrepreneurship rather than raising the minimum wage, a deeply held goal of many Democrats that polls well across the board. She has taken a harder-line stance on the border than has any member of her party in a generation and has talked more prominently about owning a Glock than about combating climate change. She has not broken from President [Joe] Biden on the war Israel is waging in Gaza.”

In case anyone needs a reminder, this isn’t Harris-bashing. This is a strategy debate. Sanders and other progressives want Harris to win. So does Harris!

The question is which approach will work better. And why it need be only one approach. Will championing a minimum-wage hike really alienate Wisconsin Republican pickleball women? I’m guessing no. In a nation freaked out by school shootings and non-school shootings, is there anyone who’d flip to Harris because she owns a gun?

The other fear, of course, is that this is how Harris will govern if she wins. That climate change will get no more attention in the White House than it has on the campaign trail. That the only person left in Gaza will be The Onceler.

As noted above, Team Harris has numbers suggesting they’re right and they see the path to victory. And public polling seems less reliable than ever. So what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Two things.

There’s never a good reason in a democracy to shut your mouth — or tell anyone else to — about what you want. The point of a democracy is for ideas to compete. Arguing that this will depress turnout or flip people, or whatever, is both anti-democratic and an admission. If the stakes are too high, then the respective campaigns should’ve addressed Issue X better, earlier. So: More democracy, not less! Americans are capable of hearing critiques of Harris and explanations of why she’s better than Trump. So, yes, America, keep talking! And number two…

Keep calm and carry on. No joke! Not just a catchphrase. The reason to keep calm is that losing one’s cool leads to mistakes, stupid things that backfire. So, yeah, let’s not do stupid things that backfire! Let’s do the smart thing that works of going out and making our case. It’s not an uphill battle and looking at all the metrics of this race, which candidate would you rather be? That’s right.

TCB

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NICOLE SANDLER Don’t forget to join Nicole Sandler and me on Monday, for the last weekly The Fucking News segment before Election Day. We do this every Monday at 5pm on The Nicole Sandler Show, which you can watch live at her website.

Give yourself a good weekend. And do get ‘em, kids!

1. There’s a non-trivial chance this won’t go well for Trump. We’ll see!

2. It doesn’t matter whether Lawler and Molinari reject the Big Lie, either way they’ll keep the House under Republican control.

3. “Refuse” as a noun means trash!

4. The old Colossus!