Donald Trump doesn’t just like to pretend that his rallies, most of which are held in smallish municipal auditoriums usually reserved for high school graduations and reunion tours of 70s bands, are actually attended by throngs of people. The simplest part of that illusion is that Trump constantly overstates the capacity of those arenas by double, or triple, or dodecuple. Then Trump claims that there are many times more people gathered around the outside of the building, cheering his face on giant—and absolutely nonexistent—screens.
But one part of that illusion is that Trump never bothers to try and restrict the number of seats at a rally. Instead, the focus is to invite as many people as possible. In the case of Tulsa, Trump’s campaign claims that they’ve sent out more than 800,000 tickets for an auditorium that seats 19,000. Of course, none of those people get assigned seats. Trump rallies are strictly “first come, first served.” That’s because Trump wants those images of people camping out hours in advance of the doors opening, so he can chat up the “excitement” over his appearance. That also means that, in the middle of a pandemic, hundreds of Trump supporters spent the night lined up on a sidewalk … and you don’t even have to ask about masks or social distancing.
Repeated studies have shown that transmission of COVID-19 is unlikely to occur during brief encounters or from contact with surfaces. The best way to transmit the virus is from prolonged association with an infected individual, especially in a situation where people are talking, shouting, or singing. That’s why so many church gatherings and funerals have turned into super spreader events—they tick every box on the “how to get this disease” checklist.
Across the country, movie theaters and other entertainment venues are looking for ways to reopen without endangering public safety. To that end, they’ve come up with some simple steps.
1) When seats are too close together, some seats will deliberately be left empty to maintain proper social distancing.
2) All customers and employees are required to wear masks, and to leave them on while in any area of the building.
3) All tickets are being sold in advance for assigned seats, so that theaters can determine proper capacity and spacing.
Donald Trump is deliberately doing none of this. Trump’s team has made it clear they intend to pack every seat in their not-so-large venue. People will be crammed in shoulder to shoulder—and if more can be packed into the aisles, they will be.
Masks are being made available, but no one is being required to wear them. And since Trump already made it clear that he thinks anyone wearing a mask is “trying to show they don’t like me,” it seems extremely unlikely that mask-wearing will be much in evidence during the event. It can also be expected that anyone who does wear a mask will be subject to plenty of harassment.
Finally, Trump is continuing the practice of not assigning seats, so that those who want to attend will have to crowd around the building and wait for hours before being admitted. Trump wants those pictures of crowds on the street. He wants to make sure people have time to wave Confederate flags, blather about the latest statements from “Q,” and buy T-shirts that describe Joe Biden (and Hillary Clinton, of course) using a vast collection of four letter words. Better yet, Trump wants there to be clashes with protesters and plenty of footage of his supporters waving fists and red hats. Those are the money shots.
Trump isn’t just doing everything he can to make his event into a human Petri dish, he’s starting the experiment on the sidewalks hours in advance. It takes some time for SARS-CoV-2 to manifest, so it’s unlikely that Trump will be leading cheers of “Lock [cough] her up!” But … give it a couple of weeks and check back.
By then, Trump is scheduled to do two more.