Many attendees waiting for Trump’s rally in Tulsa are not wearing masks or social distancing

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Maybe Tulsans weren't dying to see Trump during a pandemic, although many thousands did come, possibly risking their lives to follow a president who showed he doesn't value the health of his supporters enough to follow the advice of health experts. They had urged him to postpone the rally. Oklahoma has seen rising numbers of coronavirus diagnoses in the runup to the meeting, and an indoor gathering of thousands -- most of them without face masks -- may be the best possible way to spread the contagion.

The speech covered mostly familiar terrain, old promises, boring attacks and outrageous statements. The theatrical incitement and divisiveness genuinely energized the crowds when Trump first took to the hustings four years ago. Now it's mostly more of the same. We're used to him now. We've heard it all before.

Still, as with so much that is happening in the world today, we have to remind ourselves how abnormal it all is, to hear a president of the United States threaten violence against Americans and traffic in prejudice.

Speaking of recent anti-racism protests, he warned, "our people are not nearly as violent. But if they ever were, it would be a terrible, terrible day for the other side." It's unclear who exactly "the other side" is. The speech was filled with the usual racist innuendo. He called Covid-19 the racist term "Kung-flu," dog whistled, "they want to demolish our heritage," and spoke of the brutality of gangs, claiming that if Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats are elected, "our country will be destroyed."

Does anyone really believe that?

CNN aired images during Anderson Cooper’s show last night teasing the idea of huge conflict and racial unrest in the city of Tulsa over President Trump’s rally. But the man in one of the “angry” photos showed up on RSBN’s broadcast and totally BUSTED the folks at CNN for their exploitation.

In the CNN clip (screenshot above) Cooper is going to commercial and teasing the next segment. Both the lead-in story, and the segment he is teasing are about race, and the context is racial unrest in Tulsa over Trump’s rally and Juneteenth and the recent protests.

Here is that clip.

Yesterday a woman caught CNN attempting to get a racial clip, it was the black man that said that wonderful prayer with everyone. The lady said CNN starting filming and as soon as the narrative didn't go the way they wanted they yelled CUT and walked away. https://t.co/esHLfzgb9k pic.twitter.com/FkR9F5NEzL

— Heidi Heitkamp (@HeitkampHeidi) June 21, 2020

Now here is the bit that the Right Side Broadcasting Network caught. The man from the photo is a community activist and Trump voter named Bruce Carter, and while being interviewed by RSBN’s Liz Willis, he pulled out the image of the CNN broadcast on his phone.

Watch:

He got an award from President Obama, he works to better communities and foster conversation, he voted for Trump, and CNN exploited his image.

Epic.

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This part of the interview is also very interesting. Let’s hope his name goes viral and Trump sees it.

What a great interview.

The crowds cheered when Trump attacked CNN or China, but it appeared to me that his effort to make them hate Biden didn't elicit quite so much excitement.

The speech was typically self-centered, with a bizarre more than ten-minute long riff on his ultra-slow descent from the West Point ramp, and absolutely no words of compassion for the nearly 120,000 people in this country who have died during the pandemic.

Instead, Trump repeated the lie that coronavirus numbers are climbing because there's more testing, shockingly revealing that, "I said to my people, slow the testing down, please." Experts say testing saves lives. Slowing the testing leads to more deaths. The White House predictably claimed he was joking.

If this was the great comeback, the relaunch of Trump's campaign for re-election, it was a flop, and Trump most likely knows it. Don't be surprised if heads roll in the campaign.

Instead of a showcase for the great enthusiasm Trump is supposed to engender in his supporters, it left quite a different impression.

Not only did we not see the massive crowds we were promised, we saw something else, something deeply disturbing. We saw a president willing to risk the lives of his supporters in order to garner political support. Six Trump staffers organizing the event had tested positive.

Every image of the crowd of tightly-packed Oklahomans holding Trump 2020 signs made one wonder how many among them was breathing in the coronavirus. How many will contract Covid-19; how many will take it home to their relatives, to their neighbors, friends and co-workers? How many will die because of this Trump rally?

Instead of a triumphant relaunch, we saw a president threaten anti-racism protesters, and that started even before the rally.

Instead of a president confident in his achievements, we saw a man in the midst of a string of defeats. We saw a man unable to recognize the depths of the crisis faced by his country.

Trump is in freefall, presiding over the worst public health crisis in a century, the highest unemployment rate since World War II, the biggest sustained protests in decades. He is losing in the Supreme Court; his poll numbers are nosediving. And in the 24 hours before this rally, his administration launched a shambolic effort to push out a prosecutor who is investigating criminal cases targeting people close to Trump. It was a spectacularly incompetent effort, and one that succeeded in making us wonder why Trump wanted to get rid of the prosecutor; one more wound on a presidency that is bleeding its way to the finish line.

If Tulsa was supposed to salve Trump's wounds and send him on his way to victory, it accomplished nothing of the sort. You cannot count Trump out, but he is certainly down.