Donald Trump, MAGA masses retake Manhattan
If Donald Trump wins the election this will be seen as the defiant culmination of the world’s greatest political comeback. If he loses, it will be seen as a narcissistic overreach in the critical last days of a knife-edge, historic campaign.
If Donald Trump wins the presidential election next week, his Madison Square Garden, Manhattan rally on Sunday (Monday AEDT) will be seen as the defiant culmination of the world’s greatest political comeback.
If he loses, it will be seen as a narcissistic overreach in the critical last days of a knife-edge, historic campaign for the White House.
While Vice-President Kamala Harris followed the standard political playbook and campaigned in Pennsylvania on Sunday, thousands of MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporters descended on midtown Manhattan, filling the city’s biggest entertainment arena to its 20,000 capacity to hear their hero speak, nine days from a presidential election that remains on a knife edge.
By 10.30am local time at least 3000 supporters, including The Australian, were lined up to enter what will be remembered as the signature Trump rally, which featured a roll call of MAGA celebrities including for the first time on the campaign trail his wife, Melania, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and former Democrat scion Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
For Trump it was a triumphant and pointed return to a Democrat stronghold city that made him and ultimately cast him out, after a deluge of criminal and civil charges that have at once marred and powered his third tilt for the White House.
The Republican leader, who has enjoyed a modest boost in the polls in the final days of the campaign, didn’t emerge until 7.30pm, 2½ hours after his scheduled spot, and evinced an even darker and more vitriolic persona than usual, describing the Democratic candidate as “a very low IQ individual”.
“I’d like to begin by asking a very simple question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” he said to repeated wild cheers from the crowd, before dwelling on his usual campaign themes revolving around illegal immigration and inflation.
Carlson blasted Harris as “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor”, reflecting the particularly nasty tone in an event Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, had likened to a fascist rally that took place in the same venue in 1939.
The energy of the crowd, which was disproportionately male and white, including thousands who’d travelled from interstate, and many Australians, was extraordinary. Thousands were turned away, hundreds of whom availed themselves of giant television screens placed outside the iconic entertainment venue to listen to Trump’s speech on a cool autumn night.
Apart from Hulk Hogan, who once again made a raucous appearance, the big surprise of the evening was the first appearance of the campaign of Melania Trump, who delivered her first speech in support of her husband, whom she embraced after introducing him. “Let us charge together with a shared vision that builds on American greatness. Let’s seize this moment and create a country for tomorrow – the future that we deserve,” she said.
Musk, who has invested more than $US115m ($174m) in Trump’s campaign, enjoyed standing ovations from the crowd as he praised Trump, who strode on to the stage in his trademark navy suit and red tie to speak for around 75 minutes.
“We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook,” said Musk, wearing what he described as a “dark MAGA” cap. “And America’s just not going. It’s just going to be great. America is going to reach heights it has never seen before.”
Merrily Carter, a small-business owner from California, encapsulated the interstate flavour of the rally, having flown in specifically to attend “about my 20th Trump rally”.
Carter, one of the hundreds of diehard supporters who camped out overnight on Sixth Ave to secure a good spot in the queue, told The Australian: “We came in at 11.30pm last night, just with chairs, and we took turns at staying a awake.”
Democrats seized on an off-colour joke by the first speaker on the program, Tony Hinchcliffe, an up and coming Republican-aligned comedian, who joked about Hispanics’ alleged proclivity to have children, and described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage”.
Local Democrat New York congressman Ritchie Torres, posting on social media, said of the attacks: “Ignore the haters heaping scorn on Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally. Puerto Rico is not garbage. It is gorgeous. The people. The culture. The island.”
Ignore the haters heaping scorn on Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s rally.
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 27, 2024
Puerto Rico is not garbage. It is gorgeous.
The people. The culture. The island. pic.twitter.com/UR3XcFUoeB
Harris, whose national polling advantage over Trump has been steadily eroded in the last weeks of the campaign, said she had released “my plan to help build a brighter future for Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people as president”.
The length of the Trump event, well over six hours, did tax some supporters. Mark Henley, owner of an auto repair shop in New Jersey, left perhaps 20 minutes after Trump began to speak, along with hundreds of others.
“It’s been a long day, and I’ve been at 36 of these,” he told The Australian. Henley said he was “inspired to see that people were brave enough to come here and support him and fill the place up”.
“I was born in Atlantic City, and I don’t know if you’re aware that that’s where he had a lot of casinos and stuff, and my parents worked for him,” he added.
Derek Arden, a banking technology worker from Brooklyn who was also scurrying out early to catch a train, said he began to support Trump in 2020.
“I switched because once I got over the media propaganda, it just makes sense, his policies are for America first,” he told The Australian, while expressing concern about election fraud. “As long as (it’s a) free and fair election, there’s no way he can lose; they need to clean the voter rolls.”
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