The Invisible Majority
On Saturday, Donald Trump had his first campaign rally since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Before it even began, it was shrouded in controversy for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it’s pretty fucking stupid to plan a rally with tens of thousands of people in close proximity in the middle of a highly infectious global pandemic in a state where new cases are rising. Of course, the Trump administration’s response the COVID-19 has mostly been to ignore it, so this isn’t surprising. Secondly, they planned the administration on June 19th, a holiday that has been largely ignored, but which celebrates freedom by commemorating the day when slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation. They also planned the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you don’t know anything about Tulsa, start here:
In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street", one of the most prosperous Black communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Massacre; it has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history", in which mobs of white Tulsans killed black Tulsans, looted and robbed the black community, and burned down homes and businesses. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, was ended only when National Guardsmen were brought in by the Governor. An official report later claimed that 23 Black and 16 white citizens were killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300 people died, most of them Black. Over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, and an estimated 10,000 Black people were left homeless as 35 city blocks, composed of 1,256 residences, were destroyed by fire. Property damage was estimated at $1.8 million. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful, but the events were re-examined by the city and state in the early 21st century, acknowledging the terrible actions that had taken place.
As per usual, Trump’s campaign is engaging is cruel, race baiting division tactics by holding a rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth. Oklahoma is a state Trump won by 36 points: there was absolutely no legitimate political reason for him to hold a rally here, this was done entirely out of malice, and his campaign clearly thought they could pass it off as a coincidence. They did eventually conceded to reschedule the rally for June 20th after being criticized for the decision.
On Twitter, the Trump campaign bragged about having given out over a million tickets, and many users pointed out that if that many Trump fans showed up, roughly 980,000 ticket holders we be stuck outside during the event because the venue, the Bank of Oklahoma Center arena, only seats about 20,000 people.
The time for the rally came, 1,000,000 fans however, did not. Not only did a million people not show up, they didn’t even get close to 20,000, with nearly the entire upper bowl of the BOK arena center completely vacant. As reported by The Hill, the Tulsa Fire Department has announced that roughly 6,000 people (supporters, event staff, paid actors, security, etc.) attended the event in total. Not a huge number when you consider how much Trump hyped the event up. It’s also been hilariously pointed out that even The Wiggles managed to sell out this venue, while Trump could hardly reach 33% capacity giving away free tickets.
Trump tweeted photos of the event that were taken from angles clearly intended to highlight the crowd, but even in his own photos, you can see the empty seats in the upper bowl.
Here’s a more honest view:
I’m sure Brad Parscale and Tucker Carlson will come up with all sorts of crazy reasons why the event’s attendance was so low. They’re already blaming it on the coronavirus and liberal protestors blocking the entrances, but let’s consider that for a second. A bunch of Trump supporters don’t even believe in the coronavirus, and the ones who do have made it well known that they aren’t very worried about it. Also, there probably would’ve been crowds outside if these mythical protesters were preventing people from entering the BOK Center, but there weren’t. In fact, there were so few people outside that they canceled the address Trump had planned to give for all the fans who wouldn’t be able to get in once the venue reached capacity.
Trump claims to have a silent majority, but a more more accurate phrase may be “invisible majority“.
We’re adding a point to our COVID-19 scoreboard based on the fact that our president was stupid and arrogant enough to have a rally during a pandemic.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 16