Trump’s Rally Was a Desecration of Madison Square Garden

With his a fascist rally in New YorkDonald Trump has desecrated what many consider a holy place: Madison Square Garden. It wouldn’t be the first time a Nazi rally had beaten people to the rafters of the Garden. In 1939, on the eve of World War II, American Nazis filled the old garden at 50th Street and 8th Avenue to spew white supremacist bile. The sordid event was largely forgotten until director Marshall Curry turned the never-before-seen archival footage into an Oscar-nominated short film. 2017 year Night in the garden.

It would be naïve not to think that the Trump campaign was thinking about 1939 when it was drawing up a plan for the campaign. Trump’s most militant billionaire supporters—the likes of Nazi souvenir-lover Harlan Crowe, anti-democratic eugenicist Peter Thiel, and apartheid scumbag Elon Musk—as well as Trump’s brain trust, no doubt wanted to end the campaign with MSG as their sly tribute to 1939. It seemed perfect: a wink to their hardcore base, but with enough denial that J.D. Vance could whine about being called a fascist, saying they were just there to “celebrate America” ​​(the place Trump calls “garbage dump”). To think that MSG was not chosen very deliberately is to still believe that Trump is somehow a “normal” politician.

Many participants of the action were outraged that the disgusting story of 1939 had risen from the dead. Madison Square Garden is considered “the most famous arena in the world” for a reason. In 1971, the “fight of the century” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier took place here. It was the scene of legendary concerts and wrestling cards. It is also, of course, the home of the New York Knicks and Rangers. There’s no greater tribute to the Garden’s mystique than the fact that the building oozes with energy like no other arena, despite the mediocrity — with the occasional bright spot — of its two home teams over the past five decades. Many performers and athletes have confirmed this unique high. I love the quote from pro-wrestling impresario Paul Heyman, who said“Madison Square Garden is the center of the universe for any New York kid. Even going there as a fan is like walking up to the plate at Yankee Stadium. You know you are in a great cathedral.’

The idea that this place evokes special feelings in “any New York kid” that I once was is real. It is right at 33rd and 7th, the first thing outsiders see when they arrive at Penn Station, and the first thing New Yorkers see when they return home. But Trump’s rally is a reminder that this arena is not “ours,” even as we fill it with the passion that breathed life into iron, concrete, and bright lights.

Instead, non-billionaire James Dolan inherited MSG, the Knicks and the Rangers. For those unfamiliar, the nearly 70-year-old Dolan is practically a child: a misogynist, cocaine-enthusiast with a trashy rock band whose life of failure and incompetence is tempered by untold wealth. Like SL Price Sports Illustrated wrote in a 2007 article titled Lord Jim, the stories of Jim’s drug and booze-fueled past, his volcanic temper, his mood swings were already legendary, fueling the image of a spoiled boy who had been handed the keys to perhaps his most prized possession. in all US sports.”

He’s also, of course, a Trump supporter, and he handed over the keys to the Garden to the company as if it belonged to him. And the truth is that it is there is its to do just that. I spoke with Frank Guridy, the author of the new book The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and the Game. He said: “The Trump MSG rally is a continuation of America’s political battles being fought in stadiums and arenas. Stadiums and arenas are political, and Trump’s rally makes that clear, even if the stadiums are dressed up as apolitical corporatized spaces. Note that the marquees outside the Garden advertised the rally as if it were just another highlight at the Garden, with Trump and his slogans plastered outside the Garden along with advertisements for Verizon and other companies.”

This normalizes both Trump and his rallies, Guridi noted. It makes it look like just another Billy Joel concert, and it’s reminiscent of the signs outside the Garden in 1939 that simply read, “Pro-American Rally!”

Dolan also, as Guridi noted, is fighting to preserve tax subsidies that have cost the state billions of dollars in revenue. In Trump’s world of openly corrupt, brazen transactional politics, Dolan may be looking to protect their share from the trough of corporate welfare. Or it might be giving Dolan too much credit as an intelligent thinker. It’s far more likely that he’s a fan who sees Trump’s failure in life as an upward trajectory of the best-case scenario for himself.

Dolan is more than willing to use MSG as a political prop to pursue his right-wing fever dreams. Its big advantage in the face of the ensuing outrage may be that for most New Yorkers, the closest thing to being at the Garden is the MSG chain.

The average price of a Knicks ticket is the highest in the NBA at $186. After you’ve brought your family, paid the exorbitant ticket fees, and gotten into the stands, you’ve spent enough on a two-hour basketball game to cover the rent (well, maybe not the rent in New York). The arena is a world away from the days when working-class people used trivia to see wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino do his thing. The sense of “ownership” that city workers historically felt toward MSG has waned. With Dolan’s act of loyalty to Trump, the arena now becomes even more remote, more like a future home The man in the high castle than the place of the NBA champion. What Trump orchestrated — right where Jalen Brunson is making memories almost every night — was a sin. But for Dolan, this is just another degradation. This man is bad for the city, and he’s proven it once again by handing out the often magical MSG to people who, like in 1939, just want to watch things burn.