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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Donald Trump held a rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York.
By any objective measure, it was a triumphant event. There was Donald Trump, in a deep blue state in an even bluer city, returning to his hometown in the closing days of his campaign to speak to a sold-out crowd.
So how did the mainstream media cover the event? By noting that some of the speakers before Trump took the stage were vulgar. Trump, from the podium that night, even disassociated himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as a floating island of garbage. This is a curious new standard late in the campaign. Is Kamala Harris now responsible for everything any of her surrogates say? They, of course, refer to Donald Trump, a two time assassination-attempt survivor, as a fascist. That rhetoric is very easy to follow. If Trump is a modern-day Hitler, wouldn’t a successful assassin be a hero?
The MSNBC coverage of the Madison Square Garden event would have been humorous if it wasn’t produced by an national news organization. They showed split-screen and in-the-box images of a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden 85 years ago. On one half of the TV screen were live pictures of the crowd at the Trump event, on the other half were men and women in brownshits with swastika patches on their sleeves. It is true that the American Nazi party held a 1939 rally at Madison Square Garden. What that has to do with Donald Trump in 2024 is a mystery. The real story is that no one involved in the MSNBC coverage had the basic journalistic integrity to say what a bad idea this was.
Since the conventional policy arguments against Donald Trump have failed – his ideas about the economy, tax cuts, and the border are more popular than Kamala Harris’ – the campaign against him has degenerated into a name calling. “He’s a fascist.” “He’s a Nazi.” “He’ll be an unchecked dictator.” Do any of those sound like winning pitches?
Chris Conley
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