It was a Prince song--white, black, Puerto Rican, everybody just a freakin', good times a-rollin'...it was Alicia Keys--concrete jungle where dreams are made of...it was Simon & Garfunkel--they've all come to look for America...
Yeah yeah yeah, it's a lot of metaphor and simile (and schmaltz) packed into an introductory paragraph, but damnit, the Trump Bronx Rally contained multitudes. And most of the assembled didn't even get to see The Donald speak!
That's right. Only the good citizens who took the day off managed to get inside the bandshell setting in Crotona Park in the Bronx. The rest of us--the rubes who showed up in the mid-afternoon--stood in line for hours and never made it through security, over the grassy hill that forms a natural bowl shape ideal for a performance. And what a performance, despite all the pre-party poopers.
Somehow, no one who missed the show was upset. Sure, standing on tiptoes to see over the throngs waiting ahead was common, but the overall attitude was summed up thusly:
"I'm here, and that's enough!" hollered a man in a faded MAGA 2016 hat.
His voice and thick local accent spoke for all of us. It was enough to be there: the first Republican presidential nominee to visit the borough in 40 years (Reagan was the last). What's more, it was a beautiful afternoon, 77 degrees with afternoon sun filtering through the sycamores.
The rain that fell on the city midday--the same rain that prompted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to send the chippy quote-tweet above--only made the freshly-mown grass that much greener in the afternoon. Crotona Park is gorgeous, but it was imbued with something beyond natural beauty on Thursday. Thick-skinned New Yorkers, strangers only minutes before, were talking to one another spontaneously. Joyously. A neighborly discovery: "You support him too?"
Anyone who has sweated on a subway platform with a thousand others, waited on interminable security lines at LaGuardia, or hovered at a hyper-cramped bar waiting to order an overpriced drink knows how rare this is. Even at Madison Square Garden, united with others through love of a singer or a team, an actual conversation is rare.
But today in the Bronx, they abounded.
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AOC's weather blasphemy wasn't the only attempt at tossing a wet blanket. Governor Kathy Hochul weighed in, angrily tossing off a Hillaryesque term she may come to regret. Trump supporters are "clowns," she claimed. Further, his rallies, she said, "are made-up, fake."
Honk, honk.
Remember well that when a dam is about to break, the ones who built it are its staunchest defenders.
Don't forget actor John Leguizamo's take on the rally. At 3pm today, he tweeted,
"Donald Trump and I are both from Queens. I love to go back, but he can't. He's not welcome there, just like he's not welcome in Manhattan. And he knows it. Donny, if you're going to keep coming to NYC, stick to the courthouse."
The gentleman in the tweet below doesn't concur. "I know presidents have came to the Bronx before, but we're talking about Woodlawn and Riverdale. He has came to Morrisania, South Bronx! The hood-hood."
Of course there were protesters. This is America! That said, they were vastly, comically outnumbered. Fewer than 50 people stood on a hill of exposed schist, waving Palestine flags and chanting "F*** Trump". Their leader was a game fellow, but he was overmatched by orders of magnitude. The shuffling line of Trump throngs--estimated at 30,000--occasionally answered their feeble taunts with "U-S-A!" or "Let's Go Brandon!" But for the most part, to parry was unnecessary.
Enough words. Here's a hell of a video.
TL;DR? Skip to 7:00.
