Sunday’s Donald Trump rally in Madison Square Garden was notable for a number of things. The entire affair was torn apart by every form of media except the loyal right-wing for its decidedly fascist tone.
But it was one jaw-dropping moment (for everyone else, not Trump) that caught people’s attention before any of the hate speech even began.
As the former First Lady, Melania Trump, was introducing her husband, it first started tongues wagging because of the rarity of her joint appearances with him. The events she does in general are few and far between, and she’s usually paid handsomely for them. But the amount that she’s been involved with his actual campaign has plummeted since his two prior runs at the Oval Office.
And then we all saw the fruit of that estrangement on full display. As the would-be emperor took the stage, the greeting the two shared was less than warm.
Trump greets Melania pic.twitter.com/mk4p6E3Igj [1]
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 27, 2024 [2]
Now, maybe they were hoping to avoid an awkward handshake, like the one he shared with her at a prior event, just before he told her “You go sit down.”
But that wasn’t the view of most commenters on social media. X users seemed to think the air kiss was transactional, as if it was all she would agree to. MeidasTouch.com editor Ron Filipkowski even posted the video, with the caption “He has to pay extra for a real kiss.”
Others were equally savage.
He hugged Ivanka more passionately.
— TheFrenchie (@ML3democrats) October 27, 2024 [4]
He promised her the kiss would last as long as he does in the bedroom.
She then agreed to a 3 second kiss.
— Mason (@masonisonx) October 27, 2024 [5]
At the end he is whispering to her that he is increasing her payment by $25,000 to stay to the end of his long, rambling speech.
— Artie Vandelay (@ArtieVandelay1) October 27, 2024 [6]
I wonder what Melania charges for an embrace and triple air kiss near cheeks.
— A Swing Voter (@a_swing_voter) October 27, 2024 [7]
Now, as I said, the media treated the entire event very differently. While social media was abuzz with the polite fakery of love displayed by the famous couple, mainstream media was awash in headlines about how disgusting the whole event was.
Headlines differed, of course. Fox News declared “Trump, powerhouse guests rock packed MSG with historic rally,” while the New York Times dove into the meat of the rally a little deeper: “Trump at MSG: A Closing Carnival of Grievances and Racism.”
I’m sure you can imagine which was closer to the truth, especially considering the headlines from Reuters, CNN, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, and a hundred more all included the overt racism seen and heard at the rally.
Can I just point out that, because ALL of his rallies are filled with racism, this must have been an especially heinous one? Let’s see if we can find an example. How about the opening comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, joking that Puerto Rico was a “floating pile of garbage” in a city who population is nearly 10% Puerto Rican?
Do you think ol’ Tony though much about the fact that Puerto Ricans make up a full third of the city’s Hispanic population when he rounded out that portion of his “comedy” routine by remarking on how much “the Latinos love to make babies.”
And there’s not a soul on earth that could convince me he had his thinking cap on when he made this “joke” about Black people in the city with the largest Black population of any city not in Africa:
Is this real ? How can any black person be fucking with this ? pic.twitter.com/ZSjlMP3Krs [8]
— Jermaine Dupri (@jermainedupri) October 28, 2024 [9]
Hinchcliffe was hardly the only offensive person there, though.
Speaker after speaker, guest after guest, politicians and talking heads variously called Kamala Harris “the antichrist,” “the devil,” and “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president,” something Tucker Carlson categorized as what people would think if Harris were elected.
No longer needing to be horribly, overtly racist himself, with his guests doing all the heavy lifting, Trump was able to pull off calling November 5th a “liberation day” from the hordes of invading immigrants without looking like more of a jerk than usual.
Still, I certainly wouldn’t kiss that mouth. He knows that’s an immigrant he’s trying to smooch when he walks on stage, right? Like, his pal Stephen Miller knows Melania and their son Barron both hold dual American and Slovenian citizenship when he says that Trump is the only one brave enough to say “America is for Americans and Americans only,” right?
No wonder she has no interest in the golden felon anymore.