Thanks, Mr. Trump!
For reminding us who you really are
Kind of a sleepy news week, eh? Has anyone heard when they’re gonna start making some news?
JK, as the kids probably no longer say. (Who cares what they say — the kids are getting old, too, just like me and Joe Biden.) If you’ve been busy binge-watching Cobra Kai episodes, here’s just some of what you missed: A literal assassination attempt (a creep with problem-skin giving Donald Trump an AR-ear-piercing). A figurative assassination attempt (Democrats trying to take out Biden with their circular firing squad). A not-terribly-competent Trump-appointed judge throwing out Jack Smith’s classified documents case against His Holiness before it ever came to trial (legal lesson: appointing your own judge when you’re the defendant can be fruitful). All four days of the Republican National Convention. JD Vance and his populist beard being nominated as Vice President. And the largest IT outage in world history. Though thankfully, my Netflix still works, so that I can finish up what might be the greatest story ever told: America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
I’m only one paragraph into this piece, and I’m already completely exhausted.
But have no fear. I’m not going to summarize all those stories. I was supposed to do something of the kind after agreeing to pinch hit for a friend’s Substack column this week, before I knew what the week would entail. In fact, I’d started on it last Saturday afternoon, knocking out this lede in the walk-up to the Republican convention in Milwaukee, back before the news started hurtling toward us at warp speed:
“You remember Milwaukee: Laverne & Shirley’s old stomping grounds, The Original Brew City, The City of Steeples, The Fresh Coast, or as Mr. Trump actually called it, the ‘Horrible City.’ I’m not sure why he hates it so much. They’ve got steak. They’ve got ketchup to put on his steak. What else does he want? Besides a passing glance from his wife that isn’t filled with contempt.”
I’d no sooner put the finishing touches on that journalistic masterpiece when a lone gunman (unless he was working in concert with the Deep State, as a couple million people suggested on Elon’s Conspiracy Emporium, formerly known as Twitter) ascended a roof in Butler, Pennsylvania, and came within inches of dispatching the once and likely future president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. (The “J.” now standing for “Jesus” in the onslaught of martyrdom literature. Even if Mr. Trump rose from the dead without actually having to die, unlike some loser deities he could mention.)
Like most of the rest of America, I was shocked and awed and greatly relieved Trump escaped with his life. I immediately alerted my Substack friend that I had to bail — I could no longer pinch hit in good conscience, writing some jokey news summary. Now was no time for levity. Nothing would ever be the same again. Irony was dead. America had lost her innocence. We’d driven our Chevy to the levee and the levee was dry, unlike our shirts, wet with salty tears. Everything about this acrimonious, godawful, cesspool of a presidential campaign had changed. We were all bleeding red, white, and blue, now.
Those sentiments were nice while they lasted. Which was for all of about ten minutes.
In no time flat, Trump’s future veep, JD Vance, perhaps trying to ace his audition for the position, tweeted that the Biden administration was essentially responsible for Trump being shot, with all their talk of him being an authoritarian who must be stopped at all costs. (While the gunman’s motive still hasn’t been discovered – presumably, he wasn’t a huge Trump fan – he was a registered Republican.) Lefty loons did their part, too, with MSNBC’s Joy Reid suggesting that Trump hadn’t been shot at all, while implying it was a set-up to allow for his heroic photo shoot.
Mind you, I don’t wish to sound glib about it all, even if sounding glib is kind of what I do. Never a Trump fan myself — I’ve been called a “Never Trumper” and worse — I was genuinely impressed when Trump, still bleeding from his ear, had been knocked down by a bullet, but got up again — the Chumbawamba of nearly-assassinated presidents. Many noted that the resulting photo – with the Secret Service crowding around him, a rippling American flag serving as backdrop, his fist raised in defiance, even while leading the crowd in a “fight” chant – felt instantly iconic. No less a serial Trump detractor than The New Yorker compared it to the legendary shot of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima. Not too shabby for a draft dodger that the late-night comics used to call “Captain Bone Spurs.” When I told a fellow Never-Trumper, to whom I usually just complain about Trump being an ass, that he actually seemed pretty badass on this day, my friend responded: “He didn’t pop up and chant ‘fight’ because he’s a badass, but because he’s a psychopath forever in need of more attention!”
No wonder they put “never” right there in the Never-Trump moniker. We NT’s are some negative nellies. But I suspect Mr. Trump would respect my friend’s unyielding, vengeful consistency. After all, it was Trump who said of his bête noire John McCain — shortly after he’d died of cancer — “I was never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be.”
But that was Old Trump. Now, his champions/publicity-monkeys assured us we were dealing with New Trump, a kinder, gentler Trump who’d been transformed by the bullet that caught his ear, and the others whizzing by his head. (And which tragically killed an onlooker sitting behind him.) This was no-joke, Grade-A drama, not the manufactured kind. Near-death experiences can grab a man by his Brioni suit lapels and shake up his worldview.
So I did something that’s expressly forbidden in the Respectable Punditry Handbook. I waited……refusing to man my opinion-slinging station to Make Sense Of It All. There’d be neither my usual condemnations of Trump. Nor would there be some rah-rah, schmaltzy celebration of him and the American spirit — the prose equivalent of a Ken Burns soundtrack – even if an American president hadn’t shown this kind of resilience under fire since George W. Bush nearly took an Iraqi shoe to the head. I would just wait and see if the end of the week still felt like the beginning.
Oh sure, I did a little light punditry here and there. It was, after all, Republican-convention week, and nobody’s pure. But those were just chip shots. I waited to do the longer heave I’m doing now to see if anything changed, tone-wise, among the Trumpsters. It did, kind of. In 2020, Don Jr’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was insufferable and loud. Now, in 2024, under a kinder, gentler, more civil Trumpster regime, she was instead loud and insufferable. Three cheers for personal growth.
But what about Trump himself? Of whom great things had been promised all week, as he supposedly scotched the typical Trump speech he was going to give (a “humdinger” in Trump’s demure parlance) in favor of one that met the moment, that sought to unify, rather than divide. (Trump’s not much of a math whiz, but if he had to pick his favorite arithmetic operation, division would get the nod.)
So on Thursday night – Trump’s nominating speech night – I sat through the gobs of warm-up sycophants and kneepad-wearers and golf partners and third-favorite sons, each testifying a little more emphatically than the next to Mr. Trump’s generosity/humanity/athleticism/brilliance/courage/dancing ability.
But then Trump took the stage on this monumental night. So monumental, that his wife, who usually can’t stand to be in the same room as him, even showed up belatedly in the family box (after he’d already left it). For about fifteen minutes, The Great Man seemed a new man. He was humble and generous. He thanked the revered statesmen who had preceded him that evening, like UFC president Dana White, the guy who also started Power Slap, a fight promotion in which people slap the shit out of each other as hard as they can in the face. Along with Kid Rock, who has contributed such timeless classics to the American Songbook as “Bawitdaba, da bang, da dang, diggy diggy diggy said the boogie, said up jump the boogie” and “You Never Met A Motherfucker Quite Like Me.” A regular Aaron Copland.
Trump said that the discord and division in our society “must be healed.” That “we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together, or we fall apart.” A very hopeful start! A pretty gracious thing to say for a man who just got shot in the face less than a week earlier! Were the hype-men right? Was this a reconstructed Trump we were witnessing?
He transitioned into the story of his shooting, speaking of his hand covered with blood, bullets flying, brave Secret Service agents rushing to the stage: “great people at great risk, I will tell you, and pounced on top of me so I would be protected.” He spoke of the crowd, “the massive crowd of tens of thousands of people” who “stood by and didn’t move an inch.” (Most estimates put the crowd at several thousand people, but in Trumpworld, crowd size has always been an elastic measure.) “This beautiful crowd,” he continued, “they didn’t want to leave me. They knew I was in trouble. They didn’t want to leave me. And you can see that love written all over their faces. True. Incredible people. They’re incredible people. Bullets were flying over us, yet I felt serene.”
Trump spoke more of the crowd, and of the fallen, who he paid touching tribute to (unlike the fallen of January 6, whose demise wasn’t put into motion by an assassin, but by him). He spoke of “this providential moment,” and of the “pride for our country,” and how “no matter what obstacle comes our way, we will not break. We will not bend. We will not back down and I will never stop fighting for you, your family, and our magnificent country.”
Even if you’re not a Trump fan, it was a lovely several minutes. But as he roused himself from his unity slumber with all his fight talk, the moments turned into half hours, and the half hours turned into an hour-and-a-half — the longest acceptance speech in convention history. Trump was off to the races, and off-script, being as Trumpy as ever. Except more as a gassed-out version of a prior Trump, still knowing what the hits sounded like, but unable to sing them with the same verve. Even this convention crowd — about as close to an enthusiastic cult as you get in the political business (some of them even wore solidarity ear bandages) — seemed like they were checking their watches, ready to hit the bar.
The next day, I re-read a transcript of the speech – all 18 pages of it, single-spaced. There were far-afield excursions and diversions, side tribs and rabbit holes. The never-ending drone of a man who not only felt the love, but was making love – to the sound of his own voice. Here are just some of the subjects he covered in stream-of-consciousness fashion:
Hulk Hogan lifting 350-lb men over his shoulders…..”Crazy Nancy Pelosi” …..beating the Democrats on impeachments and indictments…..country singer Jason Aldean’s wife…….next season’s prospects for the Green Bay Packers……..having the greatest economy in history pre-Covid……..bragging about having the biggest tax cuts ever……bragging about having the biggest regulation cuts ever….bragging about Space Force……why we’re a nation in decline under the current administration……having “less than fierce” people in this administration “except when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple other things, then they’re fierce”….....how Israel and Ukraine would’ve never been attacked if he were president……how the Democrats used Covid to cheat during the election…….how the 10 worst presidents in history put together didn’t do the damage of Joe Biden….. bragging how this was the best-run convention in the history of political conventions…..how he wants us to be excited about the future of our country, which he says “with great humility”……..Hannibal Lecter eating people……
And that was all just by page 9 or so.
On and on and on it went. And when Trump went back to his hotel that night, he probably went on for an hour or two more. And he’s probably still going on in his golf cart right now, or while pouring ketchup on his steak in the Mar-a-Lago dining room as he spins the platters from his playlist – his alpha male favorites, like “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Hello” by Lionel Richie. (Who says a strongman can’t have a soft heart?)
The next morning, it seemed like a lot of people were discouraged by Trump not living up to his billed transformation. But I wasn’t. In fact, in a weird way, I found it reassuring, amidst the whirlwind of shocking developments that hit us last week. Cliché-quoters like to say that the only constant is change. And that might be mostly true. But one thing that never changes, and likely never will, is Donald J. Trump – a temporary hero for a few minutes last Saturday. But then back to being his old self: the braggadocious man-baby, the vengeful narcissist, the village bore.
Bonus Track: In honor of Mr. Trump’s travails, I was going to play one of his favorites, but couldn’t bring myself to spin any Andrew Lloyd Webber. (As a showman, Trump has a taste for the show tunes.) But Trump reportedly loves him some Elton John, and I like his early stuff, too. So let’s play one of my Elton favorites, “My Father’s Gun.” Not-so-fun fact: Trump’s would-be assassin boosted his father’s gun, thus making this perhaps the most tasteless bonus-track intro I’ve ever written. But it is a great song: