When a sea of supporters for former President Donald Trump turned out in Texas on Saturday, it did more than show the 45th president still has a draw for voters that President Joe Biden can only dream about.
It showed how desperate Trump opponents are to artificially suppress the crowds willing to show up when he flies into town.
But an attempt by Trump’s vocally nasty niece to dampen the turnout didn’t turn out quite like she must have hoped — in fact, it blew up in her face.
It’s packed. pic.twitter.com/o1hvMo3ciN
— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) March 25, 2023
In the run-up to the Trump rally at Waco Regional Airport in Waco, Mary Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump’s deceased brother, Fred, tried to kick-start a social media campaign to close out the venue to true supporters by fraudulently reserving space.
“If we book the 50,000+ venue, we can make sure most of the seats are empty when the traitor takes the stage,” Mary Trump wrote in a Twitter post on Thursday.
It didn’t turn out that way.
Yuuuge! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/5e8coqLWFd
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) March 25, 2023
Does that look empty?
It’s not clear where Mary Trump pulled the 50,000 figure from, but according to a Thursday report by KWTX-TV in Waco, organizers had expected about 15,000 to turn out. Since that was the same day as the Mary Trump tweet, it’s pretty clear it didn’t have the impact she wanted.
On Saturday, a police officer on the scene told the Waco Tribune-Herald that that figure sounded about right.
Overflow at the Trump rally in Waco! #TrumpWon #America #MAGA ❤️🇺🇸❤️🇺🇸❤️ pic.twitter.com/83VqRFQr3D
— Christina Bobb (@christina_bobb) March 25, 2023
Parking lots opened at 8 a.m. with gates to the airport opening at noon, but the crowd started gathering well before that, according to the Tribune-Herald, which noted that: “Age and ethnic diversity were on display at the rally.”
“A makeshift parking site manifested itself well away from the staging area at Waco Regional Airport,” the Tribune-Herald reported.
“Hundreds of vehicles broke ranks with the bumper-to-bumper traffic leading directly to the venue, where designated parking areas had been marked off, and created an ad hoc parking lot of their own near China Spring Road and Uncle Worm’s Texas Cuisine restaurant.”
MILES of traffic and THOUSANDS of people on every entry point into the #Trump rally in Waco. Don’t let the MSM fool you… zero chance Biden would ever pull this size crowd. #WacoRally pic.twitter.com/b1y9948ueQ
— gBson (@FactsUcanSuckOn) March 25, 2023
That sounds like a far cry from the sparsely attended rallies the Biden campaign managed to stage during its anemic 2020 campaign — the one that supposedly ended with 80 million Americans voting for the Democratic ticket.
“The crowd grew throughout the afternoon, some attendees hoofing it from that ad hoc parking lot to Waco Regional Airport,” the Tribune-Herald reported.
“Upon arrival, guests would join lines that moved slowly, shuffling attendees from one stage of entry to another. A Waco police officer, who said he could not identify himself because he was not an authorized spokesperson, said the event was ‘very orderly: no protesters, no arguments, no fights.’”
“Very orderly, not protesters, no arguments, not fights.” Does that sound like a gathering of the kind of “domestic terrorists” that Biden, the Democratic Party and the establishment media pretend make up the real opposition to the Biden administration?
It doesn’t, because that description is no more real than the ghost attendees Mary Trump tried to summon up to sabotage her uncle’s appearance in Texas on Saturday.
After watching Biden gather a whopping 23 people at each 2020 rally, the media is trying to convince you that Trump’s Waco rally was a disappointing turnout. pic.twitter.com/Z5gFBwvTlG
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 26, 2023
Her idea was a play on a social media maneuver the left aimed at Trump for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2020 — a maneuver that won more praise in the establishment media than it did from those who actually saw the rally with their own eyes.
And here’s the thing: The more asinine plots like Mary Trump’s take place, the more they show that it’s the enthusiasm for the conservative cause that’s genuine — and the establishment horror of it is as real as the prosthetics at a “drag queen story hour.”
And the bigger they fail — as Mary Trump’s did — the more they draw attention to the former president’s continuing popularity.
Do you think Trump will win the GOP nomination?
Yes: 98% (1615 Votes)
No: 2% (41 Votes)
It’s not the first time Mary Trump, 57, has tried to damage her uncle. Her book excoriating Donald Trump, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” has made her money with sales to liberals (how many actually read it versus signaling their virtue with the purchase is an interesting question), but hasn’t changed the needs of American politics.
She’s always happy to give a hostile interview to an establishment media outlet to provide soundbite or quotes to use against Donald Trump.
Her public positions, in short, are as predictable as the harridans on “The View,” without the charm.
The presidential election is more than a year and a half away still. On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden hasn’t made his re-election announcement official yet — though every sign points in that direction.
With Democratic leadership otherwise in disarray, there’s a fair amount of potential chaos at hand, considering the party’s putative standard bearer is a perennially shaky, cognitively questionable octagenarian.
And the Republican field is not firmly set, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis still famously on the sidelines and only Trump, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former business executive Vivek Ramaswamy as declared candidates so far.
But however the future unfolds, if the left thinks it can destroy Donald Trump with the kind of dirty tricks his not-so-loving niece tried to pull off on Saturday, the stream of supporters proved otherwise.
It’s going to be game on for 2024, whether the left likes to admit it or not.
