Trump’s Ugly Racist Rally Finally Unmasks His Real Closing Argument

By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a tossup race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism.

This, and other news stories using similar language, imply that in some sense, the event at the Garden devolved in character into something other than what it was originally meant to be. The gathering went off the rails, goes this account, rather than offering a comprehensive statement of his true rationale for seeking the highest office in the land.

But why should we understand it that way? The event at the Garden actually is Trump’s closing argument.

This isn’t to say that the “grievances, misogyny, and racism” on display are the only things he’s closing on at the end of this presidential race. There is certainly a lot of messaging about the economy as well. Rather, it’s to say that this spectacle absolutely should be seen as an explicit, very public declaration that when he wins, well, he told you exactly what you were going to get, so you’d better bend the knee and get ready to swallow all of it.