Gimme That Old Time the Donald

August 23, 2017

Anxious

The first step in fixing a mistake is recognizing the mistake. And I made a big one last night when I chose to watch the Donald rant to the faithful.

It was a dark sight to behold. Some pundits called his Phoenix rally off the rails, some called it frenzied, but I found it more evangelistic. The Donald preached to an adoring following. He could have said anything and they would have cheered. So, he did and so did they.

He talked about himself in both the first and third person. (Can second person characterization be far behind? I could see him, onstage talking to himself, screaming “Donald, you’re the smartest guy in the room!” as the intent crowd listened on. Hell, they’d likely chant it right back in old school church harmony.)

For a mind numbing seventy-seven minutes, Trump blundered from one topic to the next. He attacked Mitch McConnell, the media in general, CNN specifically, Jeff Flake, John McCain, obstructionist Democrats and history itself for handing him such complicated problems – #unfair. On the other hand, he did take a moment to praise Fox News and Sean Hannity. #FairandBalanced.

Trump, of course, was obliged to visit the popular “they are killing our white culture” issue, giving a wink and a nod to his Nazi supporters. #Collaborator

Trump always attacks. The crowd loves it. And last night’s crowd was happy, almost giddy – spontaneous chanting even broke out a couple times. But they didn’t get as whipped up as I expected. #Disappointing

Please don’t misunderstand, they, of course, got pretty worked up – they are Trump supporters, but unlike many previous rallies, the Donald couldn’t bring them to a screaming frenzy. This time the craziest behavior was, mostly, onstage. I guess it’s tough to get a crowd properly worked up without Hillary to kick around anymore.

You’d think that after all this time, two-hundred-eighty-eight days since elected, the Donald would have identified and vilified a substitute for Hillary. Blaming faceless organizations and other Republicans for his failures isn’t working very well – the crowd needs a clear opposition face to hate. And blaming kismet is way too abstract for the people he wants to reach.

Sure, the republic understands that Trump’s recent adoption of the Nazi “they are killing our culture” argument is very popular among the Trump faithful, but without a killer’s face the issue can’t be leveraged. And thus far, the only killer’s face is a Nazi face.

So anyway, I probably should address my mistake and stop watching Trump’s evangelistic rallies, but can’t seem to look away. Guess I’m kind of hooked, anticipating the monument Trumps starts speaking in tongues. It should be quite the dark sight to behold

Guilty pleasures,
osv