Donald Trump famously benefited from billions in free media during his 2016 campaign — way too much, as some in the business later conceded. Back then he was a ratings monster; cable TV networks covered his rallies start to finish as millions of Americans tuned in out of horror or glee at his shameless shtick: What would he say next?
Eight years later, the networks have pulled back. Even Faux News no longer gives the former president as much attention. Only obscure right-wing channels that cater to MAGA types carry the full rallies in real time; the rest provide video snippets, if that.
Yet voters shouldn’t ignore Trump on the stump, especially given that his and President Joe Biden’s respective age and mental acuity are the overriding issue in their seemingly likely 2024 rematch. A majority, I think (hope?), would come away without a doubt about which of the two candidates is unhinged. Hint: It isn’t Biden.
For those not inclined to stream an entire, roughly 90-minute Trump show — even his fans often start walking out mid-rally — I watched so you don’t have to.
My selection was a performance in Waterford Township, Mich., a working-class area north of Detroit. Much of his rhetoric and style was familiar — often incoherent ramblings, falsehoods, indecent asides (he took a swipe at 99-year-old Jimmy Carter, who just marked a year in hospice) and sophomoric insults of his many “enemies” in both parties.
And more than ever, given the scores of criminal charges and mountain of legal penalties he’s facing, there are grievances. These aren’t rallies anymore. They’re pity parties.
Just minutes in, for the first of many times, he assailed “Crooked Joe” and called Biden “the worst president we’ve ever had.” (Fact check: An updated ranking of U.S. presidents just that day, by leading scholars, had Trump repeating as the worst; Biden debuted at No. 14.) Trump polled the crowd on whether to call Biden “crooked” or “sleepy”; the former won.
He name-checked “Birdbrain” (Nikki Haley); two prosecutors, “Deranged Jack Smith” (“He’s an animal”) and “Fawwny” (Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis); Nancy Pelosi; and Barack Hussein Obama. He’s still purposely mocking the Germanic pronunciation of retired Chancellor Angela Merkel’s name; he did so during an anti-trade tirade about “stupid” Americans buying so many German BMWs, Volkswagens and Mercedes-Benzes — most of which would have been made in South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee, respectively.
Trump seemed to sap the crowd’s initial energy by whining at length about the previous day’s news that New York Justice Arthur Engoron — “a crooked judge,” he claimed three times — ordered him to pay about $450 million in penalties and interest for financial fraud.
It was all about him. Yet Trump wanted to have the adoring crowd believing his self-inflicted legal woes are theirs too.
“These are Democrats that definitely hate me,” he said of his antagonists, starting with Biden. “They hate you too, I have to tell you.” At another point: “We’re all in this together.” And an hour in: “Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxists, Communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor. I am being indicted for you. Never forget.”
Trump’s continued denial of his 2020 defeat peppered his remarks throughout. “We won twice,” Trump blurted at one point.
And “American carnage” was a big theme, just as in his 2017 inaugural address. “Every single one of our rotten cities are being run by Democrats,” Trump said, stoking the nation’s red rural-versus-blue urban divide. “We are worse than a Third World country. … Look at our airports,” said the man who repeatedly promised an infrastructure bill. (It was Biden who delivered; his bipartisan infrastructure law includes $25 billion to modernize U.S. airports.)
Non sequiturs were constant. Trump went from grousing about his Georgia case straight into unrelated talk of indemnifying police charged with misconduct once he is president: “You can stop (crime) in one day, in one hour, if you got really nasty and really tough.” And there was this: “The great capital, Washington, D.C., is under siege. I will always defend Medicare and Social Security — unlike Birdbrain.”
I kid you not. That’s what he said. If you don’t believe me, watch for yourself.
Spoiler alert: The man is not fit to be president.
