• Trump's first post-covid rally, participating flops
  • Facebook removes post election campaign Trump because it contains racist symbol

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June 21, 2020

Attendance flop at Tulsa rally, where Donald Trump hoped to return to the usual overflowing crowds, challenging after more than three months a still alarming coronavirus pandemic. This is the most obvious political aspect of the evening, which ended with tense moments and the police forced to disperse with peaceful gas the peaceful anti Trump demonstrators and the group of armed tycoon fans who had followed them, attacking them with pepper spray.

In recent days, the president had announced that there were a million requests to attend the rally. His campaign was expecting at least 100,000 in Tulsa but he was unable even to fill the 19,000-seat indoor arena: the upper part of the stands was empty, as had never happened before at the tycoon.

Skip the speech, attack on the media
Few people out, so much so that Trump's speech scheduled before the rally on a maxi stage set up outside was canceled, in front of which it was expected to gather at least 40 thousand people. The president's staff dumped the blame on the media, guilty of having frightened his supporters with the risks of contagion (which were real), and on the demonstrators, accused (unfoundedly) of having prevented fans from entering.

And these were Trump's first two targets, too. "There are very bad people out there," he harangued, calling his fans "warriors" for defying all these dangers. He then attacked the 'fake news' media for insinuating that he might be sick because he was at the West Academy. Point went down the stairs uncertainly ("I had shoes with a leather sole", he justified himself) and drank a glass with two hands. "If I had a health problem, I would tell you," he assured.

Call the coronavirus "Kung Flu" and say, "I have saved hundreds of lives." There are currently 120,000 dead in the US.
So, he faced the coronavirus chapter, using a new racist definition, 'Kung Flu', after having already called it the 'Chinese virus'. "I have saved hundreds of lives", he boasted, despite the USA having the world record of deaths (120 thousand) and cases (over two million).

The order to slow down the tests and the attack on Biden
"Now I have ordered to slow down the tests because increasing them leads to an increase in cases," he explained. But the political heart of the speech was the frontal attack on Joe Biden, the rival on the run in the polls for the White House and who in May overtook him for the first time also in fundraising (80 million). "Our country will be destroyed if it is elected. It is a puppet in the hands of the radical left", the one that "besieges the nation" with its protests, its looting, its violence, the demolition of Confederate or Christopher statues Colombo ("I, on the other hand, tell you that I love Italy and say thank you to the Italian people"), accused, also targeting the progressive deputies Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilham Omar, evoked together with "his country" of origin (Somalia) even if she is American. "I have done more in four years than Biden in 47 for the African American community, racial justice will begin with his retirement," he added, also recalling the challenger's gaffe. But not a word about George Floyd. On the other hand, he promised that, if he is elected, the next will be the strongest economic year ever.

Nyt: "Blame for a joke on Tik Tok"
A joke by hundreds of teen users of the social TikTok and fans of K-pop, Korean pop, could be at the origin of the public under expectations at Trump's rally in Tulsa, in Oklahoma. The New York Times reports. Trump's campaign had announced that it had received over a million requests for tickets to the event, but the media present noted a lower than expected attendance and the tycoon staff also canceled scheduled events outside the Bok Center from 19 thousand places where the meeting was held; the expected crowd did not materialize. Tim Murtaugh, the spokesman for Trump's campaign, said protesters prevented supporters from attending, but reporters present said there were few protests.

TikTok users and fans of Korean pop groups claimed that they had potentially registered hundreds of thousands of tickets for the joke gathering. After Trump's campaign asked supporters to sign up for free tickets, K-pop fan accounts started sharing information with followers, encouraging them to sign up and then not show up. The trend quickly spread to TikTok, where videos with millions of views asked viewers to do the same. Many users have deleted their posts after 24/48 hours to hide their plan and prevent it from becoming known.