In 3 hours, Trump is scheduled to take the stage in Phoenix and Trump up his fans. Reportedly people were lining up early this morning, which is prolly not a bad idea if you want one of the only 3,000 or so seats available. I’m pretty sure even Trump can get 3,000 people to show up in a metropolitan area with a population of 1,660,000.
I don’t have a link to a livestream yet, but I’ll post one ASAP.
What will he say? How big will the crowd be? Which brave souls will watch AND listen so the rest of us don’t have to?
Novak Djokovic hosted the Djokovic’s Adria Tour competition in Belgrade, Serbia. This tennis competition might have been the largest gathering of people since the coronavirus pandemic was announced.
Djokovic, an anti-vaxxer, confirmed after the tournament that he has COVID, and several other athletes tested positive as well. At least he’s sorry. Someone should give Trump this information in cartoon format. He might stop the rallies. (I doubt it.)
"Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.
"When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.
"It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.
In that last sentence quoted (from the longer remarks), Schmidt has identified what could actually get through to Republicans all over the nation. These are people who consider Strength (and status and position in the world) to be major priorities–far ahead of ‘justice’ or ‘equity’ or even ‘the rule of law’ or other priorities held by progressives.
But Schmidt isn’t making this up. Any conservative/Republican who lets the scales fall from his or her eyes, will see that Schmidt is exactly right: Trump’s presidency has lost the USA both power and status. It has, quite simply, made us a global laughingstock.
And this could actually affect those who’ve tolerated everything Trump has done—the kids in cages, the ridicule for Gold Star mothers, the betrayal of the Kurds, all of it. This could be the breaking point for them.
I dropped in to ask that, too. Also curious about the crowd size, although I guess it would be pretty easy to pile in 3,000 people. Hell, Biden could probably even do it, amirite?
Also wondering about mask-wearing in the audience.
ETA: okay, the church was filled. Can’t find anything on mask-wearing.
I follow Tom Nichols on twitter. He always reports on Trumps Speeches . It sounds like it was pretty standard racist “Kung Flu” type idiocy. Covid 19 is just a stupid name and hardly anyone knows what the 19 is for, that’s why he calls it by the name he does. Hyping up 401K’s to students. Also the flu is gone. Just some of what I’ve seen Tom post.
Never mind the speech! I want to know about that miraculous air purification system! Did they have it running during the rally? Did it work? Did it vaporize everyone there?
Ya know, even if I saw Slayer in February I doubt I’d go see them again in June. And I can listen to their albums over and over and over again. Can you imagine anyone who’d want to or be able to listen to a Trump spoken-word album over and over again?
A major reason for going to the rallies is to feel powerful-by-proxie: I’m a member of the Strongest Tribe! Look at all these THOUSANDS of people! We’re Number One!
As the numbers dwindle, the reasons for going dwindle.
Trump may end as he began: with no one cheering for him except those paid to do so.
He’s got his dedicated troupe of groupies that follow him around the country from rally to rally. A lot of the people who show up at this rallies are the SAME people from one rally to the next.
So, once his rally attendance is winnowed down to his core cult, his numbers won’t dwindle much further. Just the same diehards over and over.
Living in the area I was aware he was coming but had paid no attention as to when. Yesterday I made my semi-monthly grocery run in the late afternoon and snapped on the radio. Up came Trump droning on and on. Since the afternoon drive guys often do political stuff I figured they were talking about Saturday’s rally in Oklahoma although why it was still worthy of note four days later escaped me.
Instead of a minute or two sample though, it just kept on and on. Finally on the half-hour an announcer said a quick sotto-voce statement that it was Trump’s Phoenix speech live and the penny dropped. Honestly, I could not tell the difference between the two. It looks like he has his stump speech for the season.
It looks like he found a way to fill his venues: Pick smaller venues. The church he spoke at was filled to its capacity of 4,000, 21% of the Tulsa rally. Predictably, things wrapped up just in time for the presidential motorcade on its way to Sky Harbor to screw up the rush hour traffic.
Paraphrasing what I said on Facebook: He couldn’t fill a 19,000 seat Enormodome, despite more than 1 million extant “tickets”, so he chose a smaller venue because his appeal is becoming more selective.
