Trump stokes culture wars, but low turnout mars Tulsa campaign rally

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite pastimes on Saturday continuously: Headlining a big, brash Trump campaign rally.

After three months without a major campaign event, Trump’s recuperate in Tulsa, Oklahoma was billed as a sort of reunion for the president and his most ardent supporters, some of whom had been stoppage in line for days to be sure they got a seat.

For Trump and his inner circle, the promise of a raucous, jam-packed MAGA turn for the better in a deep red state was seen as an opportunity for the president to put the calamitous spring of 2020 behind him, to fire up his army of loyal fans, and to give his flagging reelection campaign a shot in the arm.

Talking up the rally last week, Trump said nearly a million people had requested tickets to follow. “We have a 22,000-seat arena, but I think we’re going to also take the convention hall next door, and that’s prevailing to hold 40,000 … We expect to have a record-setting crowd. We’ve never had an empty seat, and we certainly won’t in Oklahoma.”

But they did deliver empty seats. Approximately 13,000 of them, according to the Tulsa Fire Marshal, who counted slightly less than 6,200 attendees at the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma Arena on Saturday Stygian. 

Shortly before Trump took the stage, construction crews dismantled the outdoor “overflow” space near the arena, after it was take there wouldn’t be enough people to fill it.

Trump and his campaign were quick to blame protesters outside the arena for scaring away awaited rally goers. They also blamed the media for reporting extensively on the risks associated with attending a massy indoor gathering during the coronavirus pandemic, especially one where neither masks nor social distancing are required.

Anciently Sunday morning, it was still unclear precisely what had accounted for the massive discrepancy between the number of ticket demands the Trump campaign said it received, and the number of people who showed up in Tulsa.

But several reports suggest that a careless network of young people on TikTok may have reserved thousands of tickets they never planned to use, and encouraged their girlfriends to do the same. If this is what actually happened, it would amount to a jaw-dropping 21st century political prank. 

The theme of dangerous protesters who pose a threat to law-abiding Americans ran throughout Trump’s nearly two hours on stage, and gratified as a thread weaving together and blurring various culture war issues that seemed to animate Trump more than talking here traditional issues like immigration and jobs. 

“The unhinged left wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our sepulchres, our beautiful monuments, tear down our statues and punish, cancel and persecute anyone who does not conform to their outcries for absolute and total control, we’re not conforming,” Trump said during an extended defense of Confederate monuments.

“That’s why we’re here actually. This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. They necessity to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new oppressive regime in its place.” 

Trump spent relatively little loiter again and again on the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 120,000 Americans over the past five months. Nor did he answer the fact that six members of his campaign advance team had just tested positive for coronavirus. 

The few times Trump did accomplish up the pandemic, it was usually to downplay the virus’ risk, or defend his administration’s slow response and monthslong testing shortages.

Coronavirus “check-up is a double-edged sword,” Trump said. “We have tested 25 million people by now, which is probably 20 million people assorted than anybody else. Germany has done a lot; South Korea has done a lot. But here’s the bad part: when you do testing to that limitation, you will find more cases!”

“So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please. They test and they assay.”

The suggestion that the president told his aides to slow down testing in order to keep infection statistics low fast drew condemnation from Democrats and from people watching the rally on social media.

White House officials, however, insisted that the president had been “apparently speaking in jest.”  

This was Trump’s first rally since Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary, discontinuing Biden the party’s presumptive nominee. In Tulsa, Trump appeared to be testing several lines of attack against the departed vice president, including that Biden is a “helpless puppet of the radical left.” 

“Joe Biden has surrendered to his party and to the left-wing mob,” Trump ordered, using a term he employs to lump together peaceful protesters, looters and progressive members of Congress. “He has no control. Does anybody morally think he controls these maniacs? … He has absolutely no control.” 

Trump continued: “If the Democrats gain power, the rioters purposefulness be in charge, and no one will be safe. No one will have control. Joe Biden is not the leader of his party. Joe Biden is a helpless puppet of the organic left.” 

These attacks on Biden were clearly designed to rile up Trump’s supporters the same way that his maligns on Hillary Clinton had prompted crowds to chant “Lock Her Up!” in 2016.

But time and again, Trump’s mention of Biden’s name missed to fire up the crowds in Tulsa. 

This hints at a broader problem Trump is facing as he mounts a campaign against the ancient vice president: For a candidate like Trump, who fares better when voters are angry than when they’re not, Biden may not spark enough anger in Trump’s supporters to really mobilize them. 

This note is supported by polling, which consistently shows that the majority of Americans have a favorable view of Biden, something that was not unerring for Clinton four years ago.

The most recent Fox News survey of the 2020 race, released last week, set that Biden’s favorability ratings are net positive 9 points, with 53% of respondents saying they hold a favorable position of him, versus 44% who view him unfavorably.

That same poll, however, found that Trump’s favorability was net dissentious 13 points, with 43% reporting a favorable view of the president and 56% an unfavorable one. Taken together, this hint ats Biden has a 22 point lead over Trump in favorability.

Some candidates might see this gap and take it as a symbol to focus more energy on expanding their support among different groups. But judging from the president’s philippic on Saturday, Trump has no plans to temper his grievance-driven, divisive campaign rhetoric in an attempt to broaden his appeal. 

At a time when much of the state is working to identify and address systemic racism, Trump repeatedly boasted that he had helped Black Americans during his presidency.

And he accused Biden, who experiences overwhelming support among Black voters, of having backed policies that hurt African Americans. “Effectively every policy that has hurt Black Americans for the last half a century, Joe Biden has supported or enacted,” Trump affirmed during one such riff. “I have done more for the Black community in four years then Joe Biden has done in 47 years.”

Yet in his nearly two hours of speaking on Saturday, much of which was converged on protests, race and law enforcement, Trump did not once mention the name of George Floyd, the unarmed, Black Minneapolis man whose expiry last month at the hands of police ignited a wave of civil unrest across the nation. 

Instead, the president returned again and again to the understanding that people who protest police brutality against Black Americans should be punished, arrested, or worse. 

“We choice defend privacy, free thought, free speech, religious liberty, and the right to keep and bear arms,” the president ordered. “And when you see those lunatics all over the streets, it’s damn nice to have arms.”