I’m a bad blogger, I know, but I didn’t bother to watch President Donald Trump’s shit show rally. I didn’t have to: NPR told me all afternoon about the big celebration:
It’s this, you know, festival atmosphere that often pops up around a Trump rally. There were people lined up, as you say. I came out at 8 o’clock this morning and walked around, and the line was very, very, very long. And then it turned into Woodstock because there was a massive thunderstorm – I mean, just an unbelievable thunderstorm and lightning and thunder. And there was a sign that went up on a big electronic board that said, we encourage you to take shelter. No one took shelter. Everybody stayed exactly where they were in line as mud just built up around them on the ground. They weren’t about to get out of line.
Wow, sounds like a lot of fun! Thanks NPR, now I have FOMO for 1934! Meanwhile, a quick glance at CNN tells me it was more of Trump’s standard bill of fare. In other words, a plateful of hateful.
He railed against illegal immigration and promised mass deportations. He pledged to negotiate a winning trade deal with China, or walk away altogether. He painted Democrats as hateful socialists who want to “destroy” the country. And he continued to sell himself as an outsider who is fighting “the swamp.”
He even went after Hillary Clinton, his 2016 presidential opponent, prompting “lock her up” chants from the Orlando crowd.
The President’s political advisers had hoped that Trump would use the 60th rally of his presidency — branded as a 2020 campaign kickoff — to tout his accomplishments and deliver a pitch for four more years tailored to a “promises kept” mantra. Trump did tick off a list of accomplishments, but his speech mostly centered on a string of personal grievances, fear-mongering about Democrats and attacks on his political opponents, past and present.
He’s a one-trick pony at this point, and the media follows him around with a shovel, inspecting every turd that falls out of that anus on his face, every. single. time.
More interesting to me would be whether anyone on the big newsertainment stations asked any questions about the preponderance of Proud Boys witnessed at the rally.
Proud Boys and white power signs in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/t0ELnjtkTB
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) June 18, 2019
Sure sounds like Woodstock to me, NPR!
Images by Matt Johnson, whose fine functional art can be found on Etsy. And if you like what we do here at the Pond, consider a yearly or monthly subscription for prime content and fewer ads (or even no ads at all).
