The obscene and absurd in MAGA Square Garden
My never-ending day with the Trump faithful in the heart of a city they insist has gone to Hell.
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NEW YORK — Close to two hours after his campaign said Donald Trump would take the stage at Madison Square Garden, the stadium announcer declared that yet another warm-up act was on deck.
It was nearly seven hours since the doors opened to this alternate universe within the World’s Most Famous Arena, even longer since many of those who made it inside first started lining up to see their hero, and the crowd drenched in roving red and blue stage lights had begun to sag.
By this stage it felt like eons ago that the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe had come out and spit on Puerto Rico, an episode that doesn’t seem quite so shocking when you Google his name. (Watch the “joke” that caused the most blowback below.)
Hinchcliffe was followed by a Staten Island painter who suggested his kitsch creations had been rejected by the New York art world because he’s patriotic and straight. As I sat in the upper deck amongst the faithful, taking it all in, the time between then and now had gradually flattened out into a warped loop of incantations, spells, and truths we hold to be self-evident:
That Kamala Harris has helped organize an invasion of murderers and rapists at the southern border who have come to defile your daughter and lay waste to America itself.
That Kamala and Sleepy Joe did the inflation, and there would be no inflation were it not for Kamala and Sleepy Joe.
That “they” — the various Enemies who need no introduction — orchestrated the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump.
That Mr. Trump sacrificed everything for you, EVERYTHING, and now you must sacrifice for him.
That “Kamala” should never, under any circumstances, be pronounced correctly.
The drumbeat of invective was constant, relentless. Many speakers carried an almost identical intonation as they explained-the-Democratic-EVIL! and got the customary cheers in response, but the overarching effect was to gradually grind everyone down. It was a microcosm of the authoritarian project, where the goal is not so much to convince or persuade as to brute-force the issue through sheer repetition of the shamelessly absurd.
Everybody here was on board from the moment they woke up that morning, but two and a half hours outside and multiple more in the stands readied the rallygoers for the rolling waves of hot spite to wash over them until it became a kind of rote ritual: cheer and clap for the inflation line. Cheer and clap for the notion that Harris is “low IQ” and — unlike Donald Trump — struggles to directly answer questions on public policy. Cheer and clap and laugh when yet another speaker sneers out a rendition of Harris’s line that she “grew up in a middle-class family.”
Some speakers did stand out. Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico line was greeted with just a smattering of laughs and applause, and many people around me were taken aback, gasping or exclaiming, “Wow.” He’d crossed the line in a way only one man is allowed to with impunity, and even the true believers sensed the transgression.
Rudy Giuliani trundled out to the day’s first standing ovation — the Artist Formerly Known as America’s Mayor is a real favorite in this crowd — and surprisingly did not mention that he’s now bankrupt and stripped of his apartment because of the work he did on Trump’s behalf four years ago.
The hoarse radio bellower Sid Rosenthal called all Democrats — all the Enemies — “a bunch of degenerates, lowlifes, Jew-haters, and lowlifes,” a very thorough description which earned a roar in the arena. (Watch below.)
The digital huckster Grant Cardone alluded to Kamala Harris’s “pimp handlers,” suggesting that the woman running for president is a whore. That one was greeted more favorably than Hinchcliffe’s boundary-pushing, and maybe the comedian had done his duty as the warm-up act. Cardone added that “we need to slaughter these other people” at the ballot box. (Watch below.)
But now, long after we all thought Trump would be on, the faithful around me started to get fidgety and make their increasingly desperate predictions. It will just be Dana White then Elon then the president, two guys hoped behind me. They’d enjoyed the lines and the laughs, but they were desperate for the main event. So was I. The drumbeat was bouncing around my skull now, smashing at the brain container, lulling me into a kind of antsy trance. I was on edge but at the back of my seat, slumped but unsettled, skittish and half-comatose. And then, a speaker brought clarity, a signal in the noise.
Cantor Fitzgerald chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick came out and spoke of how his firm was decimated on September 11 when a plane struck just below their offices in the World Trade Center, how they’d given lots of money to the families, and then he finally provided a clear answer to that nine-year-old question: When, exactly, was America great?
The Gilded Age.
The crowd was a bit miffed when Lutnick extolled the virtues of the “turn-of-the-century” economy, and they didn’t rouse much when he explained he was referring to 1900. They perked up a bit when he explained this meant “no income tax,” though it was more of a smattering of cheers.
“All we had was tariffs!” he explained, probably expecting more of a roar, “and we had so much money that we had the greatest businessmen of America get together to try to figure out how to spend it!” Near-silence. “That’s who we were then.”
And there it was. We should return to the days when all the money flowed into a handful of pockets, when the Carnegies and Rockefellers got to make all the rules, and the way that billionaires like Lutnick will seek to do that is by getting Trump in there to abolish the income tax — as if any of them pay their fair share as it is. This was Reaganomics on anarcho-capitalist steroids, and the fairly frosty reception it got in the arena was a reminder of how much more effective Trump’s economic populism has been for Republicans, even if he ended up signing the same old tax-cut-for-rich-people once elected.
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It was enough to make you wonder whether, for all the valid concern in Kamala Harris’s turn towards rhetoric about Trump’s threat to democracy, casting him as the plutocrat’s plutocrat — as Barack Obama did to Mitt Romney in 2012 — might better serve her as she tries to get over the line.
It’s not a difficult case to make. Lutnick wrapped his remarks by reminding everyone that he’ll be co-chairing the prospective Trump administration’s “Department of Government Efficiency” with the next speaker he introduced: Elon Musk. The world’s richest man is one of just a handful of billionaires who are largely bankrolling this campaign, even if Lutnick had the unmitigated gall to get on television a few days prior and speak to the intentions of rank-and-file union members.
It was a fairly straightforward declaration of this campaign’s intent, and it wasn’t — to their collective credit — the last time Trump and his friends were highly honest about their plans as this campaign crescendos toward November 5.
****
I made up my mind early on that I would not question the rallygoers here about why they came, or what they see in Donald Trump, or why exactly the Venezuelans are such a problem. Many reporters have done those interviews through the years, and justifiably so, but I wondered what I might learn by just being in the crowd and listening.
The dense column of red hats and “Bikers for Trump” jackets and camo prints and red-white-and-blue regalia stretched down 33rd Street from Sixth Avenue. Off to my left, there was a guy in a red “Penn Engineering” hat and Wharton sunglasses. A group of suit-and-tie-clad Young Republican types were chatting and giggling in front of him. Just in front of me, there was a young guy in a Trump hat, wrapped in a Trump flag, with American flag pants and a pair of Nike Cortez sneakers in the classic colorway: red, white, and blue. Midtown Irish bars and chain retailers ran down the right side, a few with signs indicating their bathrooms would be unavailable for use that day, and in the distance, at the corner of Seventh Avenue, there was Madison Square Garden.
The crowd was funneled into the asphalt street and chopped into sections by metal barricades, part of the New York Police Department’s expert crowd-control plan, and there was only occasionally some movement forward. Many folks worried we wouldn’t get in, and many chattered to friends or new acquaintances made in line. One woman marveled to her friend that one of the bars — a New York business — was flying the American flag. They were from Pennsylvania, but it went without saying — though they said it — that this city had gone to hell, and they pined for the days of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
“He frisked them all,” she told her friend.
She then struck up a chat with a young kid who said he was 19, chuffed that he’d seen the light so early on when so many in his generation were lost, and soon enough they were discussing how the Pennsylvania election could be saved from Democratic rigging through the work of Scott Pressler — a bizarro MAGA internet celebrity — and the grace of God.
A 23-year-old recent college grad next to me in a red MAGA beanie chatted to a young couple about his MAGA meme account on Instagram, which he urged them to follow; how there were “2 million” people at Trump’s rally in the Bronx this summer; and meeting “the Thanos actor,” Josh Brolin, at Comic Con. His new interlocutor, a young light-skinned Black man whose blond dreads peaked out from under a red hat, was suitably impressed, and it bears pointing out: while the crowd was heavily white and majority male, there were many people of neither description inching forward towards MSG when the chance arose.
Plenty were of the white Gen X or Boomer background more commonly associated with The Trump Phenomenon, though, and a group who’d come in from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, chattered about their community outside Scranton — onetime home of Sleepy Joe Biden — and their particular disdain for a woman who’d been appointed to run the human resources department at the local prison where at least three of them said they’d worked.
One, a man who looked to be in his 50s, recounted how, as a supervisor, he’d discovered that a colleague was sexually harassing “women and a man” in the facility, and he was floored when nothing was done about it. The other two gasped, outraged at the injustice and the irresponsibility of leadership who failed to respond to allegations of sexual misconduct. And then, soon enough, they got back to discussing their love and admiration for Donald J. Trump.
As we stood in motionless formation for 20 minutes or more at a time, waiting for the floodgates to open for another spell, a cameraman or two would occasionally roll by on the sidewalk outside the metal fencing. The crowd would roar and drum up the “USA! USA!” chants for the camera. The jovial chat continued, and occasionally someone would holler an off-color joke about Kamala Harris or start up another chant.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a metallic screech that blanketed the block. Everyone jumped and wheeled around to find the culprit: the rolling, retractable door of a delivery bay. The crowd eased up and chuckled, but it was a sign of how on edge we all were under the civil surface. Nobody had been through security yet. It’s been a year of chaos at Trump’s events. And of course, we were in the crime-ridden hellscape of Manhattan.
“You can’t walk outside in this city past 10pm,” a guy said next to me.
We got through three more staging areas, pausing for dozens of minutes at a time, including out front of Madison Square Garden where two women next to me chattered that this was a great place to find a nice single man. Then we finally mounted the stairs out front and entered the outdoor atrium with the black stone walls rising up on each side. Still, no one had undergone a security check, though now there were cops with semiautomatic weapons around.
The chants that had occasionally sprung up throughout the journey were more frequent now, the anticipation growing now that we’d get in the building after all. And one chant in particular erupted in the outdoor hallway, each shared word hitting the ears like a missile, the crack of each salvo bouncing off the walls: “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”
****
Inside the arena, before and after that period where the faithful were lulled into spiteful catatonia, there was a revivalist atmosphere about the place. Many people here had been to many or even dozens of Trump rallies, following him around the country to hear The Message and — crucially — rub shoulders with kindred spirits.
One woman a few rows back from me on the upper deck even started speaking in tongues — well, a version of it. Maybe it was more like a psychotic break, but she screeched, “Trump! Mr. Trump! Yeah! Mr. Trump!” over and over for 15 or 20 minutes.
From what I could make out, she was Taiwanese by background and was impressed enough with his stance towards China that she’d been to tons of rallies. She wore a black blazer over a black shirt and a red tie that read, “TRUMP” in vertical letters. And, of course, a red hat. She was so bizarre and disorderly that everyone in the section soon turned on her, trying to shut her up. The otherworldly screeching added another level of sensory assault to the event.
Another woman defended the rogue’s right to free speech, which was at least ideologically consistent, but one man shouted for security to come remove her before he “put her through a wall.” I couldn’t get behind that, but I did find myself feeling that community feeling with everyone around me. Jesus Christ, she was annoying, and eventually security did come and haul her out.
There were reminders at various points of the bubbling religiosity underneath what was happening here. When Trump’s childhood friend, David Rem, came out early on in proceedings, he declared that “Christ is King!” while waving a cross wildly as Sinclair Lewis — or whoever said the damned quote — grimaced from the grave. (Watch below.)
A man continually marched through the rows of floor seating brandishing a red “CHRIST IS KING!” banner, often shoving it very near to other attendees’ faces.
“She is the devil!” someone shouted of Kamala Harris at one point, and Rem reacted: “She is the devil!” he agreed. “She is the Antichrist!”
The devotion to some of the figures who appeared on stage was transcendent. When Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica Gargamel, was announced, a man two seats down from me leaned forward in rapt anticipation. He was not disappointed, as Miller rattled off the Know Nothing Party platform of 2024. When Tucker Carlson came out to suggest, among other things, that Kamala Harris was stupid and frivolously nonwhite, a woman down my row was overcome.
“I love you, Tucker!” she said, bouncing up and down. “Oh, my god!”
Carlson praised those in attendance as Real Americans who “work 40 hours a week and pay your taxes,” accusations never made against Donald Trump, and that was the other prevailing theme. This was an environment where you could declare the Republican candidate had invented the game of basketball and gotten warm applause.
Carlson turned January 6 into little more than joke line, and I imagined someone commandeering the big screens and blasting out the video of what happened that day and wondered whether it would make any difference at all. Giuliani mentioned “the laborers that he and his father used to build their business,” surely not referring to the undocumented ones, while Dr. Phil declared Trump wasn’t a bully because, well, he’s not a bully, OK?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tried to tie Democrats to the Iraq War — one which many opposed — because the Cheneys have now endorsed Harris, and someone yelled, “Traitors!” from the crowd. Kennedy further tried to suggest that Donald Trump would take on Big Agriculture if elected, that he’s going to “make America healthy again” and “restore the moral authority of America.”
He then wondered aloud, as a device, “Why do people like Donald Trump?”
“He’s one of us!” a guy yelled off to my left.
****
“The masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.” — Hannah Arendt
This was a place where it was self-evident that CNN was a lying fake-news scourge in the tank for Democrats, and also that any favorable CNN poll (or tough CNN question directed at Kamala Harris) was true and good. This was a place where Dr. Phil could keep one foot out of the darkness by dismissing himself as one of the “celebrities [who] don’t know anything about policies or politics,” having followed Hulk Hogan onstage to offer his presidential endorsement to a former television game-show host.
There were some things that wouldn't fly, like when the good Doctor dared declare he didn’t agree with everything Trump says and does. The crowd went silent. Or when Death Row Records founder (and Trump pardonee) Michael “Harry O” Harris mentioned the history of racism and sexism in America. There was nary a peep. Or when longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino invited the crowd to cheer a New York Times photographer who got a good one of Trump after the bullet whizzed his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania. It was all so confusing — someone worthy of praise at the New York Times?
But the right absurdities were right at home. This was a place where the former president’s son, Eric, could declare him “the greatest president we ever had” — eat your heart out, Abe — and many speakers could safely say that Donald Trump built the New York City skyline. Lara Trump was one of them, and she added that he’d rebuilt a skating rink in Central Park. A woman behind me truly screamed her approval.
In this vortex, New York was both the greatest city in the world and a crime-infested hellhole conquered by murderous Illegals. They’d taken over Times Square less than 10 blocks away, which made the bravery of everyone in attendance here that much more pronounced. It was like a speedrun of conservative politics towards New York more generally, which they consider a moral abomination — think Ted Cruz’s “New York values” barb aimed at Trump eight years ago — except for one day a year, where they talk about September 11. As a native New Yorker, I’ve always found it disgusting, but the contradictions dropped so quickly here they were almost arriving and existing at the same time. Like America, New York is awesome and ruined, and Trump will fix it.
When the big man finally arrived, he played the usual hits, though he added in some new pitches about a tax break for people taking care of sick family members. That seemed like an intriguing idea, but it fell completely flat in the arena, and some more typical America First economic proposals got more of a golf clap. It was the immigration stuff that drew the roar, the mass deportations and the death penalty for migrants who kill American citizens. (Watch below.)
There was the ritual booing of the news media in the back, as every five minutes or so Trump invited the crowd on the floor to turn around and shower the journos with derision, some supporters leaning over the back of their chairs to make a wildly theatrical thumbs-down motion at them. It was a reminder of Trump’s roots as an entertainer in the WWE — he’s a Hall-of-Famer and a close friend of Vince McMahon’s — though maybe it makes more sense to call it “gladiatorial.” Theatrics these may have been, but the underlying intent is real. The hate and disgust and resentment are real. The threat is real.
Because, again, Trump and his allies have been admirably honest over the last couple of months. Not about aspects of the current American reality — his rhetoric bears no connection — but about his plans if once again elevated to the nation’s most powerful office.
He has not shied away from his proposal to round up millions of people and put them in camps for deportation, or from his view that they are “poisoning the blood of our nation.” Even more than the garbage about New York’s irretrievable decline, the nativist hatred against immigrants directed by a native of the immigrant city is a godawful disgrace. They said the same crap about my Irish ancestors when they washed up on this island in the 1850s with scarcely a penny to their names, but Trump’s first administration was full of Irishmen who spat on their own family histories. Ahead of his return here, his lackeys complained that this city has somehow betrayed him, as if he did not long ago betray everything it represents.
They’ve also made no bones about how they will operate the government. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was the only one here that I heard mention the idea that Congress would have a role in governing the country if things go their way next week. For everyone else, the only branch that would be a factor was the Executive.
Trump has been clear about his belief that the number-one problem facing the country is “the enemy within,” which he previously explained was made up of Communists and other undesirables. Here, he got even more honest — or the honesty slipped out.
He admitted that The Enemy Within was “amorphous,” and that’s exactly what it will be. The Enemy Within will be anyone who opposes him at any time. They’ll be branded as Communists, or Migrant Murderer Invasion Facilitators, or whatever other label is useful, and promptly dealt with. You might even be deemed a Communist if you fail to support abolishing the income tax. On the subject of the enemies within, too, just like with the Migrant Murderers, there was a roar in the crowd.
For long periods, though, the combination of the event’s exhausting interminability and Trump’s low-energy rambling had people slumped in their chairs or checking their phones. Eventually, folks all around me started to file out. I asked if the group of four to my left were coming back as they sidled past, and they said they had to catch a train. Their votes are more than determined, but they can’t be the only ones who are ready to move on, even from a historic night at the Garden.
Jack Holmes is a New York native who spent eight years as an editor and senior staff writer at Esquire. Now he hosts The Football Weekend, a Friday morning podcast tracing the history and the storylines around the biggest matches in world soccer.
That’s it for today
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Very thorough inside look. Humanizes the attendees, but doesn’t whitewash their beliefs and behavior. Do they know that in addition to losing his apartment, law license in two states and more, Giuliani was also stuffed by Trump for $2 million? I wonder if a rundown of all Trump’s unpaid debts would undermine their faith in the “brilliant” orange businessman? Not to mention the bankruptcies, refusals to pay workers (.people just like them), etc.?
How are we going to come back from this?
That was a long, hard read for 6:45 am. And after I learned last night that our local DEC offices has been swamped with vicious voice messages (including death threats), and a friend sent me a photo from San Marcos, TX of a note taped to a Harris sign threatening to hang the “offenders” and signed “Chapter #124 of the Trump Klan”.