When Donald Trump announced that he would hold late-stage rallies in the blue states such as New York and California the reactions by the mainstream news media and political class were very predictable. Many mocked and laughed at the strategy, describing it as a function of his ego and narcissism and of little if any political value in an election that will likely be decided by a few thousand votes in the key battleground states. Others predicted that Trump’s rallies in blue states would be failures that reflect the impulsive and amateurish nature of his campaign. The hope peddlers and hopium sellers took Trump’s blue state rallies as another sign that Kamala Harris’ victory was probable because she is spending her resources, time and energy mobilizing persuadable voters in the battleground states. They also love to point out how Harris is holding much bigger rallies with celebrities such as Beyoncé and the crowds are much more energized as compared to Trump’s.

As it has been throughout the Age of Trump and the country’s years-long democracy crisis, the so-called conventional wisdom will likely be proven to be incorrect. With less than one week until Election Day, the polls remain basically tied.

The ultimate verdict will be issued on Election Day and beyond, but at this point, Trump’s blue state rallies — and his climactic Madison Square Garden rally in New York — may turn out to be an act of tactical and strategic genius. In military terms, Trump’s Madison Square Garden and other blue state rallies are an example of a raid. In a raid, the goal is not to hold ground for a long period of time but instead to do such things as disrupt the enemy’s logistics and communications; destroy a fixed target or area; gather information; rescue friendly personnel and perhaps even more importantly to win a psychological victory by showing the enemy that they cannot control their own territory and are vulnerable to attack and surprise. A well-executed raid may also pull enemy forces away from other positions, which in turn creates other opportunities for attack and disruption. Trump’s closest advisors include (ret.) Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who is an expert in special operations, conventional warfare, national security and intelligence.

Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally was attended by 20,000 thousand people and the many thousands outside the event who could not get inside the venue. Trump is an aspiring dictator and now unmasked, naked and increasingly bold fascist. The word “neofascist” no longer applies to Trump and his MAGA movement. His Madison Square Garden rally was an exclamation mark for this fact.

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At the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch writes: “One week to go. The one positive thing — in a very weird way — about the final days of the 2024 campaign is that Donald Trump and his goons are not shying away from telling the American people who they really are. That was in full bloom Sunday at Madison Square Garden, at what one pro-Trump speaker — perhaps joking, perhaps not — called “a Nazi rally.” Whatever you think you would have done to stop the spread of fascism in 1939, it’s what you are doing right now.”

The New Republic’s Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling describes Trump’s rally in the following terms: “Choosing Madison Square Garden as the New York City venue to showcase Donald Trump’s vengeful and divisive rhetoric had already evoked connections to the pro-Nazi rally held in the same location in 1939. But who Trump chose to platform at the event Sunday, and what they said, suggested that the comparisons weren’t far off.

Speaking before thousands at “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” Trump’s guests leaned into the white nationalist “great replacement theory,” donned Nazi-adjacent iconography and aggressively defined the idea of who is — and who is not — an American.""

The New York Times summarizes Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally as “a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.” Also at the Times, Michelle Goldberg pithily described the event as “MAGA Lollapalooza.”

Historian Timothy Ryback, one of the world’s leading experts on the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust, said he saw troubling signs at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:

My head is still spinning from Trump’s Madison Square Garden........

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