Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:07 pm
In a move that is difficult to describe as an accomplishment, there were so many haters in Arizona that Donald Trump had to move his anti-immigrant hatefest from the Biltmore Resort and Spa to the Phoenix Convention Center.
By this morning, 9,000 haters had tickets in their hands. His campaign chairman, Corey Lewandowski, bragged, “We received 4,000 RSVPS in 2¹/₂ hours.” By this morning, Trump was claiming 15,000:
Today I will be rallying with with 15,000 patriots in Arizona for border security! Let's Make America Great Again! https://t.co/u25yI5T7E8
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2015
The event was billed by the New York Post as “the hottest ticket in Arizona,” while ABC15 in Phoenix reported that “Demand to see Donald Trump in Phoenix off the charts.”
What is driving this frenzy is Trump’s pronouncement on immigrants: “They’re sending people who have a lot of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
CNN parsed this as The Donald saying that Trump claimed “some people crossing the border into the United States from Mexico were ‘rapists’ and ‘criminals'” though what he actually said was the opposite, that some “are good people.”
The result of all this was what Business Insider called “amazingly surreal” and “one of the most bizarrely captivating speeches of his several-week-old campaign” this morning in Las Vegas at the misnamed FreedomFest, his last stop before Phoenix.
“Their leaders … they kill us at the border,” told said. People flow through like water.” He also claimed that the Mexican government was behind Univision breaking ties with him: “Mexico put the clamps on Univision,” Trump said. “Mexico has a lot of power over them.”
His paranoia knows no bounds. His response to a heckler was, “Did the government of Mexico ask you to come here?”
Apparently, though Trump thinks Mexico is sending all its criminals here in some sort of state-sponsored mass migration, he says he loves the country. As he told the crowd,
“I love Mexico. I tell everybody. And I love the Mexican people. Nobody ever says it. Nobody ever reports it. I love the spirit of the Mexican people. I love Mexico.”
Right. I’m sure Mexico and Mexicans feel your love. This is, after all, what gangsters always say to the people they are about to give dirt naps.
And it turns out Trump has some trump to play: “Nobody knows the power of the Tea Party. I only say that because the Tea Party loves me,”
Of course, the Tea Party has been sinking into oblivion for awhile now. But maybe his hate can breathe new life into that movement. He is certainly the right guy to revitalize what was, after all, a corporate-sponsored AstroTurf movement.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
