What Hillary Left Out About The Garden
Donald Trump is planning to hold one of his legendary rallies at Madison Square Garden this Sunday. Taking place only 9 days before Election Day, this event will be one of the last in the former president’s career as a candidate.
Even if you have never been to one of Trump’s rallies, you’ve probably gotten a sense of what they’re like from television coverage—lots of hats, lots of signs, and lots of Lee Greenwood songs.
Noted for their festival atmosphere and general good vibes, the rallies attract Trump superfans, who converge to cheer for the man they consider among the greatest American presidents.
Hillary Clinton—clearly no Trump superfan—recently gave a grim warning about the mid-Manhattan mega-meeting.
The rally at the Garden, you see, is no ordinary political gathering. Rather, she explained, it is an intentional “re-enactment” of a notorious 1939 “Americanism” rally at Madison Square Garden that was held in support of Nazi Germany.
Sponsored by the German American Bund, the bizarre 1939 event featured men in uniform parading with American and Nazi flags. A giant picture of George Washington was flanked by swastikas, and the opening speaker said that the Father of our Nation, were he alive, would be “friends” with Adolf Hitler.
According to Hillary, the parallels between Trump’s rally and the pro-Nazi rally from 85 years ago are stark. “I don’t think we can ignore it,” she told CNN.
It’s worth considering whether Hillary Clinton brought these concerns up in 1992, when her husband Bill Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for president at Madison Square Garden—the same venue where, a mere 53 years before, American Nazis had gathered in the name of Hitler.
After all, Bill Clinton praised the “great hall” in which he was nominated, and ominously promised, “We offer our people a new choice based on old values.” Old values? Sounds like fascism.
Think about some of the other events that have taken place at Madison Square Garden under the shadow of its Nazi affiliation. Jimmy Carter was nominated there in 1976 and 1980—does the centenarian former president regret siting the DNC where Nazis once spread their hate?
The NBA Finals, and the NHL Finals, were held at the Garden in 1972 and 1994. The Rangers won the Stanley Cup in seven games at MSG in 1994, a triumphant moment for New York sports fans—and one that can never again be savored, knowing what we know now, thanks to Hillary Clinton.
The famous and legendary 1979 “No Nukes” concert, featuring the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor and Carly Simon, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, took place at the Garden. This peak-Seventies event evidently failed to exorcise the Nazi ghost haunting the venue.
Billy Joel has held what amounts to a residency at MSG, helicoptering in from Long Island to play a record 134 shows. Piano Man Joel says the Garden “is the iconic, holy temple of rock and roll for most touring acts.” And for Nazis, too, it seems.
The Who, the Grateful Dead, and Phish played Madison Square Garden dozens of times. Won’t be fooled again? Sounds like we have all been fools, imagining that the Garden is anything but a hangout for once and future Nazis.
Yeshiva University—an Orthodox Jewish school—holds its commencement ceremonies every year at MSG. Why didn’t Hillary tell them this before, so as to avoid all the trauma associated with graduating from a Nazi lair?
Of course, the 1939 German American Bund Nazi rally wasn’t actually held literally at the same place where Trump will speak. The venue called Madison Square Garden in 1939 was at 50th Street, where Worldwide Plaza is now. It was torn down in 1968.
Today’s Madison Square Garden is a mile away and half-a-century distant from the building where Bund leader Fritz Kuhn spewed his hate.
Not that it even matters. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats keep talking about Nazis and fascism in relation to Trump because they have nothing else to say. Coming up with arcane historical parallels about Trump and Hitler may be a stimulating game for Democrat partisans, but this talking point exists nowhere outside of fantasy.
Seth Barron writes widely about New York City.
