18 July 2024. Trump’s rambling acceptance speech was peppered with references to buying votes, Hannibal Lecter and Viktor Orban.
There was no plan. But as always, there were lies.
Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican nomination in Milwaukee on Thursday night with a rambling speech that “went off the rails.” It was, per S.O.P., filled with lies. Of note: there were no former Cabinet members in the audience, but ‘ousted’ Tucker Carlson was there.
Trump failed to present a plan for a second term nor did he mention Project 2025.
In a new twist, Trump bragged about the money that Milwaukee received from hosting the RNC (he didn’t mention any of their costs). He then went on:
Wisconsin, we’re spending over $250 million dollars here … so I hope you will remember this in November and give us your vote. I’m trying to buy your vote. I’ll be honest about that (emphasis added).”
Will the New York Times and Washington Post treat that like a throw-away?
The Guardian included it in their wrap-up as did NBC News.
Currently no mention from the BBC, FOX News, MSNBC News, The Economist or Washington Post (columnist).
I want you to imagine what would happen should Joe Biden or Kamala Harris say that in August in Chicago. Columnists would have a field day. There would be screaming headlines before the speech concluded.
But Trump? Crickets, in the main.
As he does regularly at rallies, “Trump asked if people knew his friend the ‘late great Hannibal Lecter‘” (a fictional character from the 1991 movie Silence of the Lambs) and praised Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orban.
Also, crickets.
Commentary on the speech:
James Fallows, Carter speechwriter: “Of the maybe 10,000 political speeches I’ve heard over the years, this was overall the worst.”
Rick Wilson, former Republican: “Trump’s speech was, objectively, the single worst convention acceptance speech in modern history.”
Where to begin deconstruction?
Why not with the prediction that Trump’s teleprompter-assisted ramble will receive maybe one-tenth the negative punditry attacks as Biden’s debate performance?
Trump praised Judge Aileen Cannon’s controversial decision to break decades of legal precedent (he didn’t mention that part or that the Senate confirmed her as his presidency approached midnight) to assert that the Attorney General does not have the authority to appoint a special counsel. That renders null Jack Smith’s stolen documents case. The Department of Justice has filed notice that it will appeal.
It’s well after midnight on the left coast and there’s still nothing about the speech on Memeorandum. Instead, it leads with Biden, as it has practically 24×7 for three weeks.
After all, as Tom Nichols pointed out in The Atlantic last month in ‘Let’s Talk About Trump’s Gibberish‘:
For too long, Trump has gotten away with pretending that his emotional issues are just part of some offbeat New York charm or an expression of his enthusiasm for public performance. But Trump is obviously unfit—and something is profoundly wrong with a political environment in which he can now say almost anything, no matter how weird, and his comments will get a couple of days of coverage and then a shrug, as if to say: Another day, another Trump rant about sharks (emphasis added).
This is where we are, because news organizations need anger and fear to drive clicks and views:
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The stakes in November have never been more urgent, nor the choices more extreme.
Remember: you are not voting for one person. You are voting for a team.
I’m voting for Team America not Team Russia-Hungary-North Korea.
Kathy, this is so well written. Absolutely agree with Biden/Harris talking Trump trashlike in Chicago. The media would have a field day rather than Trump SOS.
It is the most important election we've faced in my lifetime since Kennedy beat Nixon.