Oh my god I’m so bored I might die. We’re coming up on the hour mark and it feels like about three. Possibly I am in hell, and this is my punishment: a never-ending Trump speech and not even a good one. - Text to [REDACTED], 11/15/22
Trump has announced his 2024 presidency with a lackluster and terrible speech. I would tell you if the speech was good; I have no problem admitting that Trump has delivered some barn-burners in his time. This was not a barn-burner. This was a lighter that works if you shake it hard enough.
This speech was so bad that 45 minutes in, Fox News cut away from it and started in on analysis.
This speech was so bad that the audience hand-picked to witness this historical moment, this great Trump comeback — the most deplorable of all deplorables, the darkest of Dark MAGA — audibly flagged in their applause during the back half of the speech.
Trump seems about as excited about running in 2024 as someone in middle management going back to work after an extended vacation. At one point, Trump pointed out that he had a very nice life before he ran for President. Trump has pointed this out before. What I’ve never heard him do, personally, is give a bitter little laugh as he says it.
Someone sat Trump down before this speech and told him to stick to the script. That, or Trump didn’t care enough to stray from it. The first half reminded me in tone and cadence of speeches decrying violence after Charlottesville and January 6th: something he had to do but did not want to. No mention of Ron DeSanctimonious. No fun little jabs at Sleepy Joe Brandon. Just a tired, sullen 76-year-old saying the exact same thing he’s said since early 2021: everything was perfect when he handed the country over to Biden. Whomst amongst us can forget the paradise on earth that was America in 2020. Infamously a great time to be alive. Too bad that’s all behind us now.
Anyway, Joe Biden took charge in 2021 and everything went to hell in a handbasket immediately. Trump spiritlessly recited a list of sins purportedly committed by Biden which, if you watch as many Trump speeches as I do, you know by heart. Streets running red with blood, skyrocketing inflation, high gas prices, energy dependence, police spat on in the streets, something something woke sjw military. Russia would never have blah blah etc. Some of these things are true and most of them are complicated but the point is: he couldn’t even be bothered to come up with a new tight five to launch his presidential campaign? Really?
About half an hour through Trump made the announcement we all knew he’d make. The crowd cheered. Trump smiled. Here we go again.
The normal thing to do, at this point, would be to say some stuff about how he’s going to fix everything and then go into the ritualized ending complete with either YMCA or Hold On I’m Coming, depending on his mood. Probably Hold On I’m Coming. More thematically relevant.
Had Trump wrapped up, he would have been quitting while he was ahead.
Instead, relieved of the shackles of his pre-written speech, Trump felt free to go off script.
There are two kinds of off-script Trump. The first is frankly a delight if you’re a big ol’ sicko like me. This is where we get the nicknames and the memeable moments, this is where we get the good weird stuff that makes Mr. Trump a spectacle no one can ignore.
And then there’s the kind of off-script Trump we got in the back half of this speech. This is the one where he tells his weird little stories in no particular order, which is what I imagine things sound like in Trump’s head 24/7. Some of the stories may be true and some may be false and most probably exist in that liminal space between the two: parables from the world’s worst Jesus Christ.
We got the one about Xi Jinping telling Trump about “quick trials” for drug dealers and how this is why China has no fentanyl problem. We got the one about visiting North Korea. We got the one about Trump’s abuse by the media and the Democrats.
The only new story we got — and I will admit it’s a banger — is that there will be no Thanksgiving turkeys this year. No turkeys in the store. And if there are turkeys, they’re three times as expensive. Those Democratic Grinches aren’t content with stealing Christmas. There’s a War on Thanksgiving as well.
Trump also chose to congratulate one of his sons, and not the one you’d expect: Eric Trump, the second-stringer. Melania also received applause. No mention of Junior or Ivanka. The daughter’s absence makes sense after her advice helped tank Trump’s coup attempt, but the lack of Don Jr. surprised me. What does it mean? Probably nothing. At least it was something of note.
At the very end of the speech, Trump finally woke up. He looked strong and energized as he went into the traditional ending: “We will make America strong again, we will make America safe again,” etc. The audience, as always, said the last line with him: We Will Make America Great Again. Trump seemed pretty pumped. Perhaps, like the rest of us, he was glad the speech was over.
And yet, how could the speech be any other way, things being what they are? The democracy suppository Bannon kept promising to deliver is now part and parcel of the ass the Republicans got handed to them a week ago. The whole speech felt anachronistic, like something written before the midterms and hastily reworked afterwards. In response to a electoral performance so unusually dreadful that people have to go as far back as 1934 to find an appropriate comparison, Trump delivered the exact same message that led to that loss. MAGA failed terribly last Tuesday, and the response, so far, is more of the same.
It won’t stay like this. The conservatives will adapt and overcome. Soon there will be a more coherent message, a story that explains how The Red Trickle is the fault of RINOs and the communist Chinese and radical liberals and anyone but the silly boy who forced so many terrible candidates through the primaries only to see them crash and burn in the general. A great silly lad who stood before the American people with a big red tie hanging to one side of his coat like a dog’s enormous tongue, a giant sullen septuagenarian who thought this speech would be a victory lap and is instead faced with the specter of his defeat.
Charlottesville and January 6th were ugly moments. The 2020 election was similarly devastating to Mr. Trump. But Trump could distance himself from both Charlottesville and J6, and still maintains he did not lose the 2020 election. No such figleaf for the 2022 midterms as of yet. With the economy in the shitter and gas prices soaring, the Republicans should have cakewalked to a historic win. Instead, they barely clawed their way to the thinnest of majorities in the House. They may have actually lost a seat in the Senate. Worst of all, they lost control of state governments.
For the first time, the American people have slapped Trump in his big, wet face. He has no idea what to do with these emotions.
And Trump was surely aware during his entire speech that an easily-drivable distance away, another star rises: Ron DeSanctimonious. The short dumpling man is currently receiving the adoration Trump craves so terribly. The former president is both coping and seething.
The cardinal sin in American politics, practically speaking, is not evil, or racism, or misogyny, or attempting to steal an election. It is to be boring.
Trump was boring last night.
Sleepy Joe vs Sad Trump. Tortoise vs tortoise.
Mike Lindell must be thrilled. If things keep going like this, the number one vendor at Trump rallies is going to be MyPillow.
"This was not a barn-burner. This was a lighter that works if you shake it hard enough." This whole piece (unlike Trump's speech) was pure gold.
excuse me, but maggie haberman said he was "growing visibly"