The media is panicking over Trump’s first rally since lockdown. People started lining up on Monday for the Saturday-evening rally at BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The mayor says he is expecting more than 100,000 people trying to get into either the center or the alternate site next door. Together the two venues can hold 60,000.
The president tweeted that the numbers are out of sight:
We’ll have over 900,000 people who won’t be able to go. But hopefully they will be watching. But it’s an amazing.… Nobody’s ever heard of numbers like this.
I think we’re going to have a great time. We’re going to talk about our nation. We’ll talk about where we’re going, where we’ve come from.
As the numbers rolled in, the media began to panic. Editors of the local paper, Tulsa World, said, “We don’t know why he chose Tulsa, but we can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city.” When the president said that he wouldn’t be coddling any protesters who showed up, CNN headlined “Trump threatens protestors ahead of Tulsa rally.”
When Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum said that he “received information … that individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the city of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest” he announced a curfew and a traffic-free area around the center. Predictably the Washington Post intoned, “Tulsa imposes curfew ahead of Trump rally to prevent violent protesting.”
USA Today warned ominously, “Oklahoma coronavirus cases surge, hospitalizations rise ahead of Trump’s Tulsa rally” while ABC News added “Tulsa sees COVID-19 spike ahead of Trump rally.”
The Los Angeles Times weighed in: “Trump Tulsa rally shaping up to be a coronavirus petri dish” with CBS News adding “Trump’s Juneteenth Tulsa rally might have been a mistake — or a racist dog whistle.”
Vanity Fair nearly fainted: “Tulsa Health Officials Despair as the Trump Rally Rolls Into Town.”
One member of the MSM got it right. Newsweek said: “Million Sign-Ups to Trump Tulsa Rally Gifts 2020 Campaign Vital Data Haul.” Indeed, the combination of Trump’s birthday last Sunday and the announcement that hundreds of thousands were already signed up requesting tickets for Tulsa led to his campaign harvesting $14 million on that single day.
“The Great American Comeback,” as the rally is titled, is also serving as a trial run for future rallies and the Big Kahuna: the RNC’s national convention in Jacksonville, Florida in late August. Multiple film crews have been hired to cover the Tulsa event with footage to be used in campaign advertising into the fall.
All of which not only is driving the Left into panic mode but is a harbinger for future rallies, fundraising, and data harvesting by the Trump campaign. It’s likely that any rallies the DNC and Joe Biden can cobble together in response will fail miserably in comparison. And that’s what’s driving the liberal-left media crazy. They don’t understand it, they can’t explain it and so they attack it. It doesn’t matter, tweeted the president:
The Far Left Fake News Media, which had no Covid problem with the Rioters & Looters destroying Democrat-run cities, is trying to Covid Shame us on our big Rallies. Won’t work!
Photo: csfotoimages / iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
