Madison Square Garden, in successive locations in Manhattan, has served as a legendary setting not only for sports and music but also for the good, the bad and the banal of American politics. Symbolic presidential conventions, including that of the Republican Party after 9/11; historic speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater or Bill Clinton; and even the suggestive Happy Birthday, Mr. President that Marylin dedicated to JFK. On February 20, 1939, 22,000 Nazi sympathizers packed the arena, then at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 50th Street. The event, for which attendees had to pay between 40 cents and $1.10, was organized by the German-American Bund as a patriotic rally, in favor of Adolf Hitler. The decoration was dominated by a portrait of the “first fascist” George Washington. Not to be missed, there was no shortage of exhibitionist violence when a young Jewish plumber from Brooklyn, named Isadore Greenbaum, tried to protest. The racist rally that Donald Trump held this Sunday in the Garden was reminiscent of that supremacist night. And not only because of the repellent fascist odor that the final stretch of the campaign that will culminate on November 5 has acquired. Once again, the questioning of liberal democracy corners the US. Related News standard Yes Racist jokes and insults to immigrants cast a shadow over Trump’s rally in New York David Alandete | Washington Correspondent Based on the latest NYT/Siena poll, nearly half of voters do not support the American experiment in self-government, and 45% believe that democracy does not represent ordinary people. Three-quarters affirm that US democracy is threatened, but with a different perception of the danger. The erosion of faith in the US constitutional system is not new. The same revolution that almost 250 years ago created a government based on the protection of individual rights against electoral majorities and political power, also generated an illiberal rebellion. The problem is the viability of that liberal system when half of the voters seem to have stopped believing in its founding principles.
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