NEW RICHMOND, Wis. – Unless political gadfly Mike Lindell is delusional, his open-air Apple River rally was a bust. An estimates 3,000 people showed. He had hoped fo 40,000. A promised “military flyover” was 1-1/2 hours late and not military at all. The sound system suffered one glitch after the other. The talent, all second-tier right-wingers, fumbled in the confusion – no laugh lines or applause lines that anyone picked up on. The main attraction for the wholly right-wing crowd was an online giant screen appearance by ex-President Donald Trump, who was unenergetically slouched behind a desk. Besides the sun muted the screen. When Trump was done, people wandered off – even as the show struggled on. Lindell filled in gaps with unrelated meandering tales of his
> How he overcame cocaine addiction and found God.
> How leftist interviewer Jordan Klepper from Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” had ambushed him.
> How leftists had trampled the First Amendment.
> How he had the goods on the Dominion voting machine company on fixing the 2020 election against Trump.
Lindell bashed Fox News and News Max cable channels for not carrying the rally live. No other network did either. Conceptually the show was flawed. Was it a Trump MAGA rally. Lindell said yes, then no. Was it a vanity plug for his run for governor of Minnesota? Was it a publicity event for his Frank.com free speech blog? Was it part of Lindell’s prediction that Trump somehow would be restored to the presidency in August. It was mash of all of these with no coherency.
Trump off game. “Do I really want to be here?”A crowd headcount impossible with people with coming and going. Best estimate: 3,000.
Crowd meanders off. After ex-President Trump’s lackluster greetings online and muted by the sun’s glare on a giant screen, the Lindell crowd shuffled for home – even as the show struggled on.
Aerial demonstration. When the Vanguard aerial stunt team from Sioux City, Iowa, arrived over the Apple River, it was 1-1/2 hours late, and the tiny prop-driven craft were too high to make out. The Lindell video team searched and searched the sky but produced only jerky blue flickers on the rally’s JumboTron screen. This was hardly the “military” flyover that Lindell had promised, albeit the stunt flyers included military vets.