Trump to Reprise ‘A Night at the Garden’
'Closing arguments' from a Hateful Presidential Campaign Likely to Echo 1939 MSG Rally
Nothing is accidental in politics, even for a loose cannon like Donald J. Trump.
Everything Trump has done, every allusion to earlier right-wing and fascist movements has had a purpose. Claims that he did not understand these allusions, that we’re reading too much into these things are as much vile as his claims of voter fraud and an immigrant invasion.
He knows — or, at the very least, his people know.
It’s why we need to take seriously his decision to hold a rally at Madison Square Garden featuring a long list of hard-right politicians, conspiracists, and right-wing populists. Trump’s rhetoric, always fascistic, has been growing more apocalyptic and focused on his anti-immigrant grievances.
It’s why the rally today carries echoes of an earlier rally, the pro-Nazi America First event that brought 22,000 rabid racists to the Garden in 1939. The New York Fox affiliate points out that there have been many other political events at the Garden, but none share political DNA with Trump and his followers like the Bundists’ rally.
Yes, there have been other political rallies at the Garden, other events, but none served as the culmination of a campaign that has descended so purposefully into hateful rhetoric and calls for vengeance.
Watch Marshall Curry’s Oscar-winning short film, A Night at the Garden.
A Night at the Garden
after the film short directed by Marshall Curry
The young boy stomps and spins,
a dance of gleeful innocence, as
Bund troopers beat a prone protester.
Caught by the camera, the child,
maybe twelve, does a shuffle step.
A turn. Like a lindy-hopping
teen mimicking black jazz. Hips
jerk right and left, and his spindly
child arms flap and poke the air
in rhythm to the fevered
roar of catcalling patriots.
Originally published in This Broken Shore (2019).
