the carnivalesque and Trump rallies

In addition to being campaign events for an institutional political party and its candidate for POTUS, rallies can also be carnivals.

links and citations below.

growing economic inequality… led to increasing strife between the rich and poor, an aggressiveness on the part of the poor that found its primary outlet and escape valve in Carnival, with its freedom of word and deed against all, its degradation of the mighty by those over whom the mighty normally reigned… Carnival brought about the discharge of the people's agression by creating a momentary egalitarian utopia

for the duration of Carnival, the have-nots forgot their feelings of resentment because they were able to move as equals with the powerful in a world where everyone was equal.

[The Carnival is an] inverted world in which the powerful are not simply rendered powerless but humiliated.

The last act of the festival was often a drama in which 'Carnival' suffered a mock trial; made a mock confession and... was given a mock execution, usually by burning, and a mock funeral

The goal was to enforce social standards and to rid the community of socially unacceptable relationships that threatened the stability of the whole.

It allowed taboo-breaking, created ‘liminal’ (borderline) spaces in which new and alternative ideas could be expressed. And symbolic violence could turn into real violence, against authorities – or Catholics or Protestants or Jews.

1.
top left: Donald Trump on WWE (Screenshot/YouTube)
right: Rabelais and Bakhtin: Popular Culture in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Richard M. Berrong
bottom left: Woman screams at press after Trump rally: “we’re mad at you!”

2.
top left: Donald Trump supporters are ready to fight, literally, for their chosen candidate (Photo By Elise Amendola/Associated Press)
right: The Burgundian Carnaval depicted by a follower of Jheronimus Bosch, c.160
bottom left: Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Chicago

3.
top left: “Deplorable Lives Matter”, Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times
right: Rabelais and Bakhtin: Popular Culture in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Richard M. Berrong
bottom left: Supporters of Donald Trump cheer for the Republican party candidate in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on July 29, 2016. PHOTO: AFP

4.
top left: Donald Trump shaves the head of WWE Chairman Vince McMahon (Screenshot/YouTube)
right: Rabelais and Bakhtin: Popular Culture in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Richard M. Berrong
bottom left: Eileen Schilling (L) and Constance Gilligan, both supporters of republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, cheer during a campaign event where Trump spoke at Briar Woods High School August 2, 2016, in Ashburn, Virginia. / AFP

5.
top left: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
right: Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe by Peter Burke
bottom left: The Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

6.
top left: This is a shirt
top right: The Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
bottom: Carnival in the Netherlands From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

7.
left: Carnival and the Carnivalesque by Sharon Howard
top right: A protester, center left, and a Trump supporter, center right, scuffle during a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Saturday, March, 12, 2016, held at the I-X Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. (Michael Henninger/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
bottom right: After Pieter Bruegel the Elder

ideas/people/play/power