The secret Garden

Earlier this year Trump promised a mob of evangelicals that this is the last time they will have to worry about elections.  For once, he was telling the truth.

Yesterday's fascist rally in New York was a vanity exercise for the world's most unappeasable narcissist, no more.  Its very ineptitude may have changed some minds, but mostly the geek from Queens always wanted to play the Garden despite a total lack of athletic or musical talent.  It couldn't matter less because the machinery of election theft has been in place for years and is already beginning to power up.  Republican legislatures have devised ways to disenfranchise voters while MAGA thugs intimidate them.  There are sophisticated schemes involving lawyers at one end of the spectrum and ballot boxes set on fire at the other.  The postal service, inexplicably in the control of Louis DeJoy, can drag its feet about delivering ballots or simply "mislay" them.  Even if your vote survives and is counted, they have plans for that, too.

Trump himself alluded to that with a nudge-nudge comment to Mike Johnson, who was shrewd enough to avoid appearing onstage.  Ponting to the Speaker in the audience, Trump said, "He and I have a secret.  We'll tell you what it is when the race is over."  What could that mean? no one wondered.  If the other methods can throw enough dust to get the election decided by the House, Little Moses will take it from there.  Trump never could keep a secret, even before the onset of full dementia.

The rest of the show was so horrific, I can only assume it was intended to be a massive distraction for the easily distracted media.  There was MAGA philosopher Hulk Hogan, who can't remove a shirt without ripping it.  There was a denunciation of DEI by Phil McGraw, Oprah's DEI hire.  There was Byron Donalds, the kind of Black man who doesn't mind being brought onstage to the tune of "Dixie."  There was an actual former mayor, the pathetic Rudolph Giuliani, and a would-be successor, someone called David Rem.  Described as a "childhood friend" of Trump, which is already questionable, Rem pulled out a crucifix and called Kamala Harris "the antichrist."  Not to be outdone, radio talker Sid Rosenberg called Hillary Clinton a "sick bastard."  Strangely, no one seems to have slandered John McCain.

Of course Trumplings Stephen Miller, Roadkill Bob Kennedy and "dark, gothic MAGA" Elon Musk were among the all-star cast.  The geek from Queens still yearns for celebrity fans, in a week when he had to use up valuable time abusing Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen, but the best he could manage was Tony Hinchcliffe, Racist Comedian.  Hinchcliffe decided to concentrate on Latinos, specifically Puerto Ricans, several million of whom live in the States and therefore can vote.  Was hiring him a miscalculation?  Let me put it like this:  his "comedy" has been repudiated by deep-red Senator Rick Scott.  "Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!" he spluttered.  "I've been to the island many times!  It's a beautiful place.  Everyone should visit!"  Scott's panic was funnier than anything Hinchcliffe said.  He's in a tight race with Debbie Murcarsel-Powell.  Run, Rick, run!  Run fast, run far.

When you search "Grant Cardone" it says "internet celebrity."  He added some flavor to the proceedings by calling for the "slaughter" of Democrats and saying Harris has "pimp handlers," whatever that means.  He seems nice.

Taking up the theme of the event, Tucker Carlson confused the crowd by proclaiming Kamala Harris to be Samoan and Malaysian.  I don't know why.  He's just so giddy that he no longer has to podcast from a toolshed in Maine.  MAGAs are obsessed with Harris's ethnicity.  They still insist that Barack Obama wasn't born in Hawaii but they seem able to handle the fact that his father was Kenyan and his mother Irish-American.  Jamaican and Indian is just a hurdle they can't get over.  Racism, huh?

And Musk jumped around like a dipshit (from the Afrikaans word "dipshit," meaning asshole).

After all that, there wasn't much new material from the main attraction.  Venezuelan prison gangs have apparently taken over Times Square along with the entire state of Colorado.  FEMA had no money for North Carolina hurricane victims because they spent it flying illegal immigrants in "by beautiful jet planes."  We're all being deported.  (I could find myself on the same transport as Jack Smith -- we were both born in New York.)

In Michigan, Trump showed off some Arab-Americans and Muslims who endorsed him because they're fed up with Biden's support for Netanyahu.  Who isn't?  I wonder what they thought last night when Giuliani told the folks about how "Palestinians are taught to kill us at two years old" and that Kamala Harris wants to settle refugees from Gaza here.  They may not remember Trump's attempt to keep Muslims out way back in 2017, but this was a few hours ago. 

The lectern was decorated with a new slogan:  "Trump will fix it."  Not at all desperate, rolling out a slogan nine days before the election.  Those of us addicted to British panel shows will inevitably be reminded of the long-running BBC show "Jim'll Fix It," where children were encouraged to write in with their wishes.  Each week host Jimmy Savile would make a lucky kid's wish come true.  He was posthumously revealed to have been one of the UK's most dedicated pedophiles.  

Sir Jimmy -- yes, really -- would have blended seamlessly into last night's freak show.

Get out your irony-ometer:  The Trump campaign is whining to the Federal Election Commission because volunteers from the UK Labour Party are working, unpaid and on their own time, for Harris-Walz.  This is completely legal but Putin's puppets call it "blatant foreign interference."  

Laugh it up.