What We Learned on Thursday

On Thursday, Trump came rambling into Minneapolis trying to fire up his base by having a rally in the 'belly of the beast;' the House district of Representative Ilhan Omar.  The idea was to show the country Trump's appeal (even in a Democratic stronghold like Minneapolis) was far stronger than Democrats want to believe.  On the contrary, what we learned on Thursday is Trump's no longer unconditionally loved by some of his own supporters, as they realize they've been dancing with the Devil.

Don't get me wrong.  A lot of people (shockingly) still love Trump, a good 25-30% of the country, but there are signs Trump's supposed undying support is starting to cough and run a fever.  After the Thursday rally in Minneapolis, I'd be VERY concerned about the eroding of Trump's popularity within his own base.

Let's start with the obvious: Trump didn't fill up Target Center!  He just didn't!  It seats 20,000 for an event like Trump's rally, and the GOP's own online pre-game live stream showed the entire upper ring empty 15 minutes before the speakers started.  Numerous other photographs, as well as the Minnesota GOP's own video, showed most of the upper deck empty minutes before the program began.

This was apparently a mistake by the organizers.  For some reason Trump's people thought 12,000 to 16,000 people would make Target Center look full.  It doesn't.  I heard a story that when it became obvious there were numerous empty seats in the upper deck, the Trump people frantically went outside to the exterior viewing area where a few thousand Trump fans were, and shuffled as many of them in as quickly as possible.  This makes sense as the upper deck was mostly filled prior to Trump's keynote, and it also explains why the outside video viewing area was so sparsely attended, with what seemed like less than 500 people.

But back to Target Center.  It was 'mostly' filled!  The upper three to four rows in the upper deck were pretty much empty. That means it was closer to 19,000 people.  I understand there are a lot of suburbanites who LOVE Trump, but who are terrified of coming into the downtown.  They reside on the outer limits of the metro area, insisting their mostly caucasian communities infested with chain restaurants and stores is the 'nitty gritty city.'  When faced with going into the actual downtown for the evening, even to see Trump, they'll give a hard pass.

Still the Twin Cities metro area is 3.6 million people.  The population estimate for the state is 5.6 million, plus there is western Wisconsin and the insane amount of people who follow Trump around like he's the Grateful Dead.  Putting it all together, the Republicans couldn't muster more than 21,000 people (at most!) in the 16th largest metro area in the country.

Then came the speech.  I'm not going to post any direct quotes (City Pages has the ten most bizarre:  http://www.citypages.com/news/10-things-donald-trump-actually-said-at-his-batshit-minneapolis-rally/562817381) but to say Trump's ONE HOUR AND FORTY MINUTE (!!!) speech was an unintelligent garbled word salad doesn't do it justice.  He bounced around from unrelated subject to unrelated subject like a Minion after drinking four pots of coffee and a dozen Red Bulls riding a paint can shaker in an earthquake.  No one is saving the tape for posterity.

And it wasn't just liberals who got bored with Trump's speech.  Media people on the floor of Target Center started noticing the pro-Trump Republican crowd starting to fade as the speech went into the second hour.  The photographs taken by MPR photographer Evan Frost don't paint a flattering picture of the crowd's receptiveness to what Trump was saying.  This has led to Trump supporters, frantically trying to cover up their clear lack of enthusiasm, insisting the photographs were taken before the event started, posted later to make Tump look bad.  They weren't.  Even Trump's biggest supporters were having a hard time digesting his ramblings.

After the speech was done, a new Republican tradition was played out.  To make themselves into the victims, Trump supporters, as they leave the venue, must paint the scene as some sort of mad scramble for their lives!  Them walking out the venue, out to the parking lot, getting into their car and quietly leaving Target Center morphs into a deleted scene from Mad Max:Fury Road.  "I barely escaped the clutches of Ilhan Omar, as she lead a battalion of Antifa thugs armed with spiked bats and jars of urine on a rampage against anyone who was white!  WE BARELY SURVIVED!!!"

For the record, even though multiple Republican "news" outlets reported Rep. Omar was on the front lines with Antifa in Minneapolis,  Ilhan was actually overseas on an official trip at the time of the Trump rally.

On Thursday evening, there was one arrest and one citation handed out in regards to the protest.  That was it.  Sure there was a burning of Trump merchandise, but it wasn't stuff ripped off Trump supporters.  Police did get a little over the top with pepper spray at times, and there was one case where a Nazi came down to scream at the 'libtards,' only to get slapped, then run off by the crowd.  The apocalypse crowd Trump fans insist was threatening them just wasn't there.  What was there was about 20,000 (or possibly more) protestors who engaged in their Constitutional right to protest, which they did peacefully.

So even the the right's final attempt at portraying themselves as being on the moral high ground, the vilification of protestors into something far worse than what they really were, ended up being nothing substantial.

Afterwards, there was a 'canary in the coal mine' in regards to Trump's supporters and their possible wavering support for him.  I posted on Facebook one of the photos from Evan Frost.  Someone picked it up.  So far 345,000 people have seen the one post.  It was a post of this image:

You're welcome America!  This photo of bored Trump fans at the 85th minute of Trump's speech has become a meme upon itself.  My only comment about the photo was how it 1) clearly showed a bored, less than enthused Trump crowd, and 2) how it shows most Trump's fans are old and white.  

Since then, I've found myself inundated with demands for 'civility' from people on the political right.  The same people who spent eight years watching President Obama repeatedly get hung in effigy and were either silent or endorsed the disgusting displays, the same people who watched Trump mock a disabled man, the same people who heard the Access Hollywood tape, the same people who ignored Trump paying off a porn star he had an affair with at the same time his wife gave birth to his kid, the same people who watched Trump attack John McCain's service record, the same people who witnessed Trump attack military families, the same people who see Trump lock children up in cages in concentration camps on the border, the same people who cheer on Trump's never ending Twitter attacks and incompetent leadership are furious at the picture I posted, calling it uncivilized.  THESE people are now demanding civility in political conversations.  Please...

It does lead one to ask why they're making such a foolish request.  Are they starting to ween off of Trump, terrified of the 'told you so's they know they'll endure if they admit they were wrong to back such an incompetent jackass, hence a preemptive call for 'civility?'  Their biggest fear is having to admit the Democrats might've been right.  Are they pleading for civility to avoid embarrassment? 

Here's how I've tackled this.  I'll put up a picture of Trump mocking the disabled man.  This photo:  

Ask the Republican calling for civility what they have to say about this photo.  If their response is "He never did that!  He's innocent!  That's just libtards trying to make him look bad," then F- them! They're trying to get Democrats to honor a civility standard they themselves have no intention of inhabiting.

But if they state (like one woman I challenged) "I wish I'd condemned that more back then.  I was very uncomfortable with that and should've realized Trump has some issues," then go easy on them.  If they're willing to take that first step, even if it is a baby step, let them know there's a path where they don't have to genuflect too much.

We learned on Thursday some Trump supporters are starting to wake up, but much like rabid followers of all authoritarian regimes, it has to get really bad for people to realize the crap sandwich they've been eating is not a filet mignon.