One of the first indications that Donald Trump was a viable presidential candidate were his rallies. In the summer of 2015, the host of Celebrity Apprentice, whose campaign initially seemed to be a publicity stunt, drew thousands of people to events in Iowa and New Hampshire, even tens of thousands to an Alabama football stadium.

Since then, live events have defined his political career. It was at a rally in Sioux Center before the Iowa caucuses in 2016 where he boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” An early whiff of violence came during clashes with protesters as Trump marched toward the Republican nomination, culminating in a Chicago rally that was canceled before he even arrived after brawls broke out among attendees. His inauguration, which was functionally a rally, set the tone for the new administration: Trump falsely insisted that it was the largest inauguration crowd in American history. When White House press secretary Sean Spicer repeated the claim, he became an overnight national celebrity as well as a laughingstock. Then, in June 2020, for his first rally since the start of the pandemic, Trump held an event in Tulsa that typified the administration’s lax attitude about COVID. A small crowd showed up, and one prominent guest, Herman Cain, died of the virus soon after. The following year, on January 6, he called for a rally on the Ellipse in Washington to protest his election loss, just before the mob attacked the Capitol. This past summer, he was nearly killed at a rally in Pennsylvania, then turned the near-death experience into iconography when he shouted “Fight” with blood running down his face. And, of course, at his big recent rally at Madison Square Garden, a comedian described Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” — triggering a wave of........

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