With the election a week away, the Democrats and mainstream media have found their last message against Trump, which is to liken him to Adolf Hitler and call him and his supporters racists. While that message has long been prominent among left-wing pundits and politicians, the comparisons have become more prominent in recent days.

Trump achieved his longtime goal of packing the iconic New York City venue on Sunday night. The event served as something of a capstone to his efforts to win over blue state voters, even in Democratic bastions like the Empire State.

The premises led a few outlets, e.g MSNBC, to make comparisons to the 1939 Bund rally at the same location. “In that place it’s particularly chilly, because in 1939 more than 20,000 followers of another fascist leader, Adolf Hitler, packed the garden for a so-called ‘pro-America rally,'” the newspaper said, showing images from the event. “Now, against that backdrop of history, Donald Trump … is once again turning Madison Square Garden into a staging ground for extremism.”

Some of the comparisons mocked their general lack of substance. Conservative pundit Matt Walsh satirized the Hitler references by posting pictures of Trump and Hitler both eating food. “This is deeply disturbing. Adolf Hitler was known to sit at a table and eat dinner. Donald Trump has also been documented sitting at tables and eating dinner. Is this just a ‘coincidence’ or is this yet another Nazi MAGA- dog whistle?” he askedrhetorically.

“We’ve now reached the ‘Hitler drank water, Trump drinks water, so Trump is like Hitler’ phase of the campaign,” podcast host Ben Shapiro has written.

Holocaust survivors object to comparisons

In the run-up to the event, the rhetoric also drew outrage from Holocaust survivors, who argued the comparison was far from justified and pointed to his support for Israel while in office.

“I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lives,” said the Auschwitz survivor Jerry Wartski in a viral video. “For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States.”

“I think President Trump will definitely be good for Israel because everything that he has done so far was for,” he added.

But some of the content at the rally fueled the comparisons, as some of Trump’s warm-up speakers made a number of awkward comments or controversial jokes. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe in particular, made a number of racially charged comments that he said were intended as jokes, including referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of trash.”

The comment sparked outrage from the left, including the Harris campaign. For his part, Gov. Tim Walz suggested that Hinchcliffe’s comments reflect the sentiments of the Trump campaign. “These people have no sense of humor” Hinchcliffe replied. “Amazing that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyze a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist.”

“I love Puerto Rico and holidays there. I made fun of everyone … watch the whole set. I’m a comedian Tim…might be time to change the tampon,” he continued.

Harris himself appeared to take Hinchcliffe’s comments to heart by releasing a video appeal directly to Puerto Ricans.

“Throughout my career, I have always fought for the people of Puerto Rico. Every chance he got, Donald Trump abandoned and insulted them.” she wrote. “As president, I will invest in Puerto Rico’s future so that Puerto Ricans can not only survive, but thrive.”

However, the offense was not entirely limited to the political left. CNN’s Scott Jenningsone of the network’s more conservative voices, saw Hinchcliffe’s appearance and comments as an unnecessary distraction from the campaign’s message in its final days.

“Really Stupid”

“It’s a stupid idea and really stupid. I mean, there’s no other, no other way to characterize it,” he said. “It was a really, really, really, really, really, really stupid idea and it distracts from, you know, what Trump’s overall closing message has been, like if you look at what he’s saying and you look at his paid ads, which they released on Sunday, it’s really mostly about the economy and about immigration and about how we can have a more optimistic future in America .”

“So, it’s a situation where the campaign obviously had a plan to turn the message towards the two issues that work and to a brighter future and this comedian that I’d never heard of until yesterday showed up and caused him trouble,” he continued . The pro-Harris legacy media seized on Hinchcliffe’s comments with editorial headlines.

“Trump ends with shivers” read the subject line on Monday morning Political playbook. The Hillmeanwhile, highlighted Hinchcliffe’s comments, but also pointed to comments from other speakers, including Sid Rosenburg, who called Democrats “a bunch of degenerates.”

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” references to the 1939 rally made another appearance, with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci making the comparison. “My reaction is that it was a combination of 1933 Germany, 1939 Madison Square Garden last night.” he said. “What you saw last night is a divided America. It’s race baiting. It’s all the things that we did in the 30s and 40s.”

Conservatives, for their part, seem relatively unphased by the escalation of “Trump is Hitler” rhetoric, which has been pervasive since Trump first started his political career.

“The left is trying to raise Hitler talk, promoting MSG as a ‘hate rally’ and a Comedy Central comedian’s apparent joke as a way to rile up their base and get them to ‘fight hate.’ It’s all absurd, but that’s what’s happening.” Charlie Kirk said.

“The far-left press has been going on and on about how Trump is like Hitler, like Mussolini and Stalin combined,” said Elon Musk. “These are people who killed tens of millions of people. Something is wrong with the press.”

With the election a week away, there is little left on the schedule that could provide an opportunity for the Harris campaign to boost Republicans, and “Trump is Hitler” appears to be their closing argument. Whether that will drive the turnout Kirk described remains to be seen. The Trump campaign has doubts.

“I think it’s telling that Kamala Harris’ closing message is basically that all of Donald Trump’s voters are Nazis, and you should be really pissed off that a comedian is telling a joke,” Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said at a rally in Wisconsin on the monday. . “That is not the message of a winning campaign, and most importantly, it is not the message of a person who is fit to be president of the United States.”