6,200. That's the Tulsa Fire Department's estimate of the crowd last night. Imagine the mood of unstable demagogue and raging narcissist Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump when he gazed out at all the empty seats and half-filled floor of Tulsa's 19,000 capacity BOK arena last night (see post below). Perhaps the sight prompted unusually toxic riffs from him, including these memorable lines:
"Here's the bad part ... when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people; you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please."He also obsessed over the video of his shamble down the ramp at West Point, spending roughly 10 minutes lamely (no pun) explaining it away, saying at one point "It was like an ice skating rink." He also explained his odd way of holding a glass of water, saying "I don't want to get water on the tie." (Note to Dems: please exploit his obvious sensitivity about his frailties.) One topic he didn't touch: any word of sympathy for the nearly 120,000 Americans who have died of COVID-19 on his incompetent watch.
"I can name Kung Flu. I can name 19 different versions of them.
"When you see those lunatics all over the streets, it's damn nice to have arms."
Apparently, K-pop fans had a hand in artificially jacking up the attendance expectations, when thousands of them reserved tickets for the rally with no intention of going. AOC noted the broad-based sabotage in responding to Trump campaign Sturmbannführer Brad Parscale (who may be in hiding this morning):
Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020
Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T
Others commented on the dud of a rally:
This is what happened tonight. I’m dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against @realDonaldTrump. All across America teens ordered tickets to this event. The fools on the campaign bragged about a million tickets. lol. @ProjectLincoln.— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) June 20, 2020
I think I sold that same place out in five minutes. 😹 #donkeyshow pic.twitter.com/JNOwjIQ3hB— P!nk (@Pink) June 21, 2020
— Jane Lynch (@janemarielynch) June 21, 2020
Just last year Nickelback played a sold out show at the BOK in Tulsa.— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) June 21, 2020
Tonight Donald Trump couldn't even fill it with free tickets. pic.twitter.com/z4WzsBzHYW
The thing about the million sign ups is it’s not like they shut anyone out who wanted to go since they didn’t limit anything. All it did was make the fail so much more delicious, like adding butter.— Schooley (@Rschooley) June 21, 2020
White House officials often describe the president flipping out and making outlandish demands after reading critical headlines. I cannot imagine what he will do upon seeing the top of this piece by @shearm, @maggieNYT, and @AsteadWesley. https://t.co/zhokZgTicN pic.twitter.com/qw0ccPOQFT— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) June 21, 2020
The vast majority of the Trump cult that did show up refused to wear face masks (own the libs!), and were standing and seated cheek-by-jowl. But now that Trump's announced his opposition to testing, they'll carry the virus back home in ignorant bliss.
BONUS: Water Girl at Baloon Juice explains what the million bogus sign ups did to the Trump campaign's voter tracking and ID system. Glorious.
(Photo: Sad! /Win McNamee, Getty Images)
1 comment:
Here's the beauty part: those fake ticket requests screwed with their data collection and led the campaign to believe the incoming crowds, but they didn't cause the low turnout. People stayed away in droves. The attendance numbers came in around 6500 at best, and in a 19,000 seat arena, it was obvious that it was a weak crowd.
Lots of camera pans showed empty seats and a definitely uncrowded floor. I watched the opening of the event on MSNBC and the look on Trump's face upon entering the arena was priceless. He knew there would be thousands waiting for him, cheering him on. And all he got was a view of empty seats. Blue ones, as a matter of fact. ha ha.
Trump had a very bad weekend. Barr forced him to sign off on the shady dismissal of Berman, six of Trump's security team tested positive for the virus, and his big Campaign restart was a colossal flop. It was a good day for the rest of us.
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