The 2024 Trump/MAGA Rally was “Bundebar”!

Trump’s NYC Madison Square Garden Rally Contained the Same Elements and Concepts as the 1939 German American Bund Rally Supporting Hitler

Oct 31, 2024

Banner of George Washington at 1939 German American Bund Rally at Madison Square Garde.

“History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes.” Mark Twain[1]

Boy, did Mark Twain get it right! Although it is contested that Twain did in fact say the quote above, for now, let’s attribute it to him and “call it soup.”

And another oh boy- boy did Twain get it right this past weekend when Donald Trump and his MAGAized Republican Party held a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden! To understand just how much history “rhymed” when Trump et al held this rally, let’s go back and take a brief look at the event which preceded it eighty five years ago that this recent Trump rally emulated.

The Rally Which Set the Example for Trump and MAGA

It was the evening of February 20, 1939, and New York City’s flag ship venue, Madison Square Garden, was lit up for the evening’s main event. It was billed as a “Pro American Rally.” The rally’s organizers had chosen the date in celebration of George Washington’s birthday for which they displayed a thirty foot banner of the first U.S. president on stage. More than 20,000 men and women streamed inside the Garden greeted by a stunning view of Washington hung between American flags and swastikas.[2] According to Sarah Kate Kramer of NPR,

“…The rally was sponsored by the German American Bund, an organization with headquarters in Manhattan and thousands of members across the United States. In the 1930s, the Bund was one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology and American patriotism.”[3]

According to Kramer, “…The rally opened with the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The mood was jubilant. Attendees wore Nazi armbands, waved American flags and held aloft posters with slogans like "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." There were storm troopers in the aisles, their uniforms almost identical to those of Nazi Germany.”[4]

What They said at the 1939 German American Bund’s NYC Rally

Kramer describes the Bund rally as “…explicitly anti-Semitic, and tirades against "job-taking Jewish refugees were met with thunderous applause. They demanded a white gentile America… They denounced Roosevelt as 'Rosenfeld,' to say that Roosevelt was in the pocket of rich Jews… In equal measure to the xenophobia, the speeches were loaded with American boosterism.”[5]

Kramer then describes what the rally speakers believed saying “…One of the main speakers, Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, the national public relations director of the Bund, pointed to the white supremacy present at America's founding as a nation. "The spirit which opened the West and built our country is the spirit of the militant white man," he preached. Kunze followed the thread of racism that runs through American history to bolster his vision for a whites-only America. He cited anti-miscegenation laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Jim Crow policies and immigration quotas. "It has then always been very much American to protect the Aryan character of this nation," Kunze told the audience.[6]

And the significance of the Bund’s giant Washington portrait banner? That was very intentional on the part of the Bund’s leaders. The idea was to convey the idea that what the Bund and its members wanted was what the nation’s Founding Father’s always wanted. In fact, they referred to Washington as America’s “first fascist.”[7]

Fast Forward- What is Old is New Again

So, that was the 1939 German American Bund Rally. But what Trump and his MAGAtonians did at MSG the other night was new to the extent it didn’t focus mostly, as the 1939 Bund rally did on being copasetic with Hitler, hating and blaming Jews for all manner of ill in this country, or the presidency of FDR. Perhaps that is because Trump and his people have apparently figured out that FDR has been dead for quite a while (1945) and that it is not 1939 anymore.

Instead, at Sunday’s rally the MAGA nation diversified the target of their hate from the Bund’s 1939 rally. They went after anyone and everyone that is not part of America as they envision it to be. That is to say, the rally speakers went after anyone who is not racially white and is not (supposedly) Christian (or at least as Christian as the rally attendees think they themselves are).

The speakers spent much of their time castigating, disparaging, and minimizing the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee Kamala Harris and anyone they could bootstrap into being guilty of associating with her (i.e., those damn “libs”!). They diversified their vitriol to cover not just Democrats, but anyone with a hint of skin color or who is Muslim. Trump and his four hour program entourage of sycophantic speakers disparaged them all. According to Brett Samuels of The Hill, “…The parade of guest speakers who preceded Trump seemed intent on creating controversial headlines for the party, hurling racist and sexist insults.”[8]

The opening salvo was fired by speaker Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony. Mr. Kill Tony delivered these kind, “Christian” remarks about Puerto Rico:

“…There’s a lot going on. Like, I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,…”[9]

Guess I need to look up the Bible verse that Christian nationalists supporting Trump are using to justify hatred statements like this.

The Vitriol Got Worse

And bless Mr. Tony’s little ‘ol racist heart, he was just getting the evening started for the hate, misogyny, and racial animus that was to follow him. Rudy Guiliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who has been disbarred in NYC and most recently disbarred in DC for work he did for Trump trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election[10], spoke of Kamala Harris as “being on the side of terrorists”. Further, disbarred Rudy told the crowd they should be afraid of Muslims because after all, they have been trained since they were two years old to hate Americans.[11]

Others who took the stage ahead of Trump included former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, billionaire Elon Musk, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wrestler Hulk Hogan and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).[12] Tucker Carlson warmed up the crowd by attacking Kamala Harris’ racial heritage by falsely branding her as “Samoan-Malaysian.” Neither is correct as Harris’ father is Jamaican and her mother immigrated to the U.S. from India.[13] Harris was also described by another speaker as “the devil” and “the antichrist.”[14] Wow, if true, it’s amazing she wasn’t invited to the rally since someone who actually is the antichrist would have felt right at home.

Of course, the night would not have been complete without a rally speaker taking the opportunity to demonize Hillary Clinton. That job fell to New York City radio host Sid Rosenberg, who occasionally has Trump on his show as a call-in guest. Rosenberg made these profane derogatory remarks:

“She is some sick bastard, that Hillary Clinton. What a sick son of a b‑‑‑‑,” he said of the former secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee. “The whole f‑‑‑ing party. A bunch of degenerates.”[15]

Another wow! I bet Sid made his family proud with his words of radioactive level intolerance. But, as with all shows, the “best” was saved for last.

It Was Time for the “Grand Poobah” to Speak

After several hours of his minions speaking to work up the crowd, it was Trump’s turn to speak, a kind of grand finale. Trump used his same script he’s used before for his remarks at this rally. He continued the pugnacious tone his election surrogates speaking before him set, reiterating the threats and grievances he has aired before. He repeated his claim that he is fighting “the enemy within” who seem to be any Democrat that has disagreed with him or conducted an investigation of him for alleged criminal wrongdoing (he’s the DOJ’s “best client”). He promised again to launch “the largest deportation program in American history”[16], something that has been estimated will cost American taxpayers as much as$315 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “b”).[17]

Trump continued his frequent rants about immigration, promising to “restore our borders.” He claimed that a “savage Venezuelan prison gang” had “taken over Times Square.” It has been noted that this will come as a surprise to anyone who has recently visited the New York landmark. The former president also wrongly stated that the Biden administration did not have money to respond to a recent hurricane in North Carolina. Trump explained that this happened because “they spent all of their money bringing in illegal immigrants, flying them in by beautiful jet planes.”[18]

In other words, Trump’s MSG rally remarks were his usual lies, demagoguery, historical revisionism and omissions, and clear assertions that he does indeed have designs to be our nation’s first dictator. It continued the strong man theme he set at his inauguration in 2016- “I alone can fix it”, something when one reviews the history of his presidency, finds that the only thing he completed successfully when he was president was to lower the taxes of the nation’s billionaire class.

What Can We Take from What’s Been Said at this Rally?

What does this mean for Americans? How should we process what Trump, and his surrogate cabal said this past weekend at Madison Square Garden, a rally that was anything but “wunderbar” (unless you are inclined to fascism).

In an odd way, we should probably have a sense of gratitude that Trump and his sycophants said and acted the way they did at this rally. Not only did they clearly show how their 2024 MSG rally covered much of the same grievance ground that the pro-Nazi German American Bund’s 1939 rally did, but they did it “in the light of day”, eliminated all doubt about how fascistic it is, and they expanded their grievances and hatred against the American people tenfold. They successfully dispelled any doubts that Trump and MAGA are fascist. The proof is irrefutable.

Maybe it was done chiefly to satisfy Trump’s “base.” Nevertheless, it is all on record now in newspapers, social media, internet, and video available for millions of Americans to see. We need to look at it, play it back, listen to it, and take it very seriously because they meant it very, very seriously. They are not joking.

Further, we can now point to this fascist rally and say without a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump is not only a fascist, but if elected again, he clearly intends to be an extremist rightwing dictator who, he is convinced, knows what’s best for us. It is apparent he expects us, because he sees himself as more intelligent than all of us, to unilaterally hand over our agency as a free people in a democracy to him.

Trump will make all the decisions for us. Democracy will disappear under Trump, that much is clear. There will be no more “government by the people, for the people as Lincoln spoke of in his Gettysburg Address.”[19] The statements Trump has made publicly at this rally along with his surrogates’ remarks has put our democracy on a short timeline for destruction. Trump will become the government. We will have no say about it. Democracy will vanish.

The “Morning After”- We have a Choice to Make

So, what can we do with what was said this past Sunday at the Garden by the Trump and his MAGAtonians?

As might be expected, the Trump campaign is already walking back the “comedian” Hinchcliffe’s remarks about Puerto Rico as a garbage dump. And as usual, Trump is not apologizing for anything, disavowing knowledge of Hinchman (despite his campaign staff approving him as a speaker and loading his speech into the teleprompter). Prominent entertainers, some of whom have previously endorsed Trump, have rescinded their support.[20] The Archbishop of Puerto Rico sent Trump a letter saying he should apologize to Puerto Rico.[21] And as usual, Trump is now trying to reframe his fascist rally as a “love feast.”[22]

Still, we should believe every word of what was said. These speeches were no accident and are a clear signal of what a second Trump presidency holds for Americans. Fascistic dictatorship is on the horizon for America if we fail to choose our next president wisely.

As for me, I intend to never surrender my freedom to a dictator. Our democracy, even with all its imperfections, has been purchased and defended by the lives and blood of too many patriotic Americans to let a con artist and fraudster and cheater and convicted law breaker like Trump take it away from me.

Just like me, the choice is yours. But please remember this- freedom (at least for now) may be free, but it is never cheap. And, once you lose a democracy, getting it back can take a long, long time, if indeed if it can ever be regained. Just ask the citizens of Chile or Argentina. True, it is no longer 1939. But fascism’s rise is even more threatening today because unlike 1939, today fascism has taken over a major American political party, the Republican Party.

This is not a normal election centered on partisan politics. It is an election whose epicenter is a choice between democracy or fascist autocracy. There is only one presidential candidate in 2024 that intends to uphold our democracy. It is Kamala Harris. That is why I support her.

¹^{Quote Origin: History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes – Quote Investigator®}

[2] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[3] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[4] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[5] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[6] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[7] When Nazis Took Manhattan : Code Switch : NPR

[8] 5 takeaways from Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally

[9] 5 takeaways from Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally

[10] Rudy Giuliani permanently disbarred in Washington, DC - POLITICO

[11] Trump rally at Madison Square Garden features offensive, crude commentary - CBS New York

[12] 5 takeaways from Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally