Where We Are This Week
Trump makes his triumphant return, why crowds scare me, and an outro that can't be missed!
Donald ‘Holyfield’ Trump
I tuned in to the Republican National Convention tonight for the first time this week. I was only interested in seeing Donald Trump’s speech; rumor had it that his original draft had been tossed in the refuse after the assassination attempt and that the former president’s speech would focus on unity and reconciliation.
While the content of Trump’s address to the delegates and elected officials in attendance was conciliatory, ambitious, and generally positive, I’m not sure that anything can unify the increasingly bipartisan politics of the United States of America. That’s not Trump’s fault per se, though, the idea of him as a ‘unity’ president has only just been floated into the political landscape.
Can an assassination attempt really transform his image that rapidly? The protesters outside the convention earlier this week waving Palestinian flags and calling Trump a fascist would suggest otherwise. It’s great to see that the left is holding up their end of the bargain to cool tensions in the country.
Regardless, Trump was calm, gracious, and bandaged. Policies aside, the stark contrast between the mental and physical capacities of the two major candidates has never been clearer than they have been in the past couple of weeks. President Biden has been on an emergency hodgepodge tour of press conferences and media dates where he called President Zelenskyy (of Ukraine) President Putin, referred to Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as ‘the black guy’ — the last one was on BET of all places.
Trump, by contrast, spoke confidently and cogently to a lively audience inside the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for over an hour. If they’re genuinely our only two options, I’ll take the one that doesn’t have an 8 PM bedtime with almost no reservations. On this point, I am a hypocrite, however, because as I write this, I realize that I would eagerly vote for an unconscious Joe Biden over a resolute Kamala Harris — but that’s a conversation for another time.
In the opening minutes, Trump gave a disquisition full of narrative detours and rest stops detailing the attempt on his life that occurred just this past Saturday. It was sober and self-conscious; it culminated in a tribute to the man who was killed at the rally, Corey Comperatore.
After the appropriate solemnity, Donald Trump was exactly the same as he always is — and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way.
Ever the performer, Trump went on to hit all of his usual highlights, reciting ‘drill baby drill’ and his usual tangents like the one where he talked about him personally designing naval ships and the men in the shipyard were impressed because, you know, this was a man who knew what he was talking about. Trump vowed to bring home the American hostages held in Gaza before he joked that he thought Kim Jong Un missed him in the Oval Office.
I’d like to see Joe Biden pull off that one-two punch but who am I kidding, the Democrat Party would boo him off stage the moment he mentioned the hostages.
At one point, when he was lecturing about his immigration policy, the chart depicting illegal immigration at the Southern border — the one he shifted his stance to look at this past Saturday that ultimately saved his life — was displayed on twenty floating screens. It was either message overkill or an effort to throw off any potential gunmen in the crowd.
He riffed, he bragged, and he commanded the crowd who responded fervently and eagerly whenever they were called upon. Tucker Carlson remarked earlier that night that after the assassination attempt last week, everything was different; the election was different, Trump was different, we were different.
From my vantage point, however, as I noted on Monday, for better or for worse, from the pundits to the protestors outside to the candidate on stage, everything was back to normal.
A Note On Crowds
As I said earlier, tonight was the first night I’d even attempted to watch the RNC.
It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Donald Trump — and I think I treat him fairly — but I couldn’t help but be moved by his reaction to being struck by that bullet on Saturday. He emerged from the pile of secret service bodies around him, blood strewn over his face, and pumped his clenched fist to the crowd, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
I know this man has spent a lifetime in front of the camera and I know that I might be mistaking weather for climate, but it’s the first time I’ve ever thought that Trump’s bid for the Oval Office — whether in 2016 or now — was about anything more than his own self-esteem.
That said, virtually all goodwill Trump had earned in me was eroded the moment I turned on the television to see Kid Rock performing the thing he calls music on stage. Fedora’d and sunglassed, he beseeched the crowd, imploring them to chant ‘Trump! Trump!’ to the tune of what I presumed to be a new song. They obliged.
Crowd mentality is one of the most disconcerting phenomena in society. When my dad and I were walking to see the Rolling Stones several years ago, I remember him saying how much he hated being in a large crowd of people; all it takes is one act of stupidity or malevolence for a stampede to ensue — or worse. Implicit in the formation of a crowd is that it’s only a snap of the fingers away from becoming a mob.
To paraphrase the late, great, Anthony Bourdain, ‘One moment you’re in a crowd and then, boom, it’s Nazi Germany.’
It’s got to be a strange thing watching all of these people swoon in adoration as you walk onto the stage. Trump did so to the tune of Lee Greenwood’s ‘Proud to Be an American’ — the single worst patriotic song I’ve ever heard — and at first, before launching into his trademark pointing and gesturing fists, it looked as if the scene was set for an interpretative dance.
I think it’s the devotion that’s so unsettling. Celebrity after celebrity heaped praises, both personal and professional, on the man whose name would soon be emblazoned on the background. Later, after Trump had commented on the miraculous nature of his brush with death, he commented, “I shouldn’t be here,” to which the audience spontaneously chanted, “Yes, you should!”
I bet Trump has never heard that Groucho Marx joke that goes, “I would never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member.”
Tucker Carlson waxed lyrical about how Trump’s survival was evidence of divine intervention. Sorry, MLK, the Big Man needed you elsewhere. I think showing gratitude to the Creator is a good thing, admirable even, but things get a little out of hand when you start to make assertions about the intention of divine will. Sure, the mano de Dios have swiped away the rushing bullet to ensure Trump lives to a second presidency, but what about the tragic death of Corey Comperatore? Let’s not get carried away with freak accidents and coincidences and get all manifest destiny with the next election.
The former president wielded his newfound power of near-martyr, quasi-savior with restraint. He mentioned Biden just once and really did stick to a message focused on common ground and restoring America to its previous ascendency. But the temptation to go astray always has to be there, right? Because, let’s be honest, at the end of the day, it’s a cult.
When you’re staring into thousands of navy-suited red-tied simulacrums, the realization that you’re the only one steering the ship must hit pretty hard. It’s a cult that, for now, wants to put an end to illegal immigration, inflation, and two wars — and one that I would join before whatever pro-terror, pro-walking-dead freak show the Democrats will be putting on at their convention this year, but I’m still cautious.
Let’s all keep a close eye on our pitchforks at least until November, deal?
We’ve had drought conditions in Tennessee over the last two months. Our garden is in a perpetual state of pathetic wilt and the grass in our yard died weeks ago.
Normally, summer mornings and evenings are reprieves from the heat of the midday sun but lately, its oppression arrives with no prelude. Rain is on all of our minds.
War has been raging in Ukraine for over two years, America turned the citizens of Afghanistan over to the worst people imaginable in 2021, and Israel has been at war with Hamas for 10 months. Most recently, the former president survived an assassination attempt despite the insulting incompetence of those charged with his protection.
This is a drought of another kind. Life is ugly.
On Tuesday afternoon we watched the clouds roll in, wondering if they’d bring any rain. We’d been fooled before so no one was exactly getting their hopes up. We blew bubbles, played with chalk, and waited.
Relief was granted in the evening. My two-year-old and I danced in the rain, letting the water cool our skin and the soles of our feet as her mother watched from the patio. The rain wasn’t enough to restore the gardens, but it was enough to offer momentary solace. We splashed in puddles before they were greedily soaked up by the earth.
Later, my daughter was asleep in her room dreaming of the gentle shower as her wet hair dampened her crib sheet. My wife had gone inside to clean up, and I stayed outside to finish a weeks-long project.
The air was cooler as I applied the last coat of paint on my daughter’s new bookshelf, and the summer cicadas sang a song of contentment. It was cautiously sanguine. We breathed satisfied.
Life is, also, beautiful.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA