“Nothing will stop me”
At least Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies were well-attended. For Trump’s Nuremberg-style rally at the cavernous sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, the venue was only half full. Or half empty, if you’re a pessimist. In any case, those that were there could only take so much. People started walking out long before the nearly 90 minutes of Trump’s stream of disjointed drivel was over.
Trump “celebrated” — gloated about, really — his 100th day in office with attacks on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power. But Trump averred that “Nothing will stop me.”
Trump’s obsession with President Joe Biden, the man who whipped his ass in 2020, was much in evidence, highlighting Trump’s fragile ego and obvious struggles with deep-seated inadequacy. Trump falsely accused the 46th President of engineering massive border invasions by gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate communities. “Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.”
Of course, it’s obvious on its face that Democrats vowed no such thing. No sane person would “vow” such a thing, or think it was something to be desired. But then, no sane person would gut social security and Medicaid, kidnap and deport innocent people, children with cancer and others without due process, defy a direct order of the Supreme Court, bring the American economy to its knees with insane tariffs and make nice with America’s enemies while threatening to invade its allies.
But those in the crowd who were stupid enough to believe this evil, stupid and mentally imbalanced man cheered him on. He could have promised to deport their children and some of them would have cheered. There is no bottom for MAGA.
It’s a measure of Trump’s inadequacy that he spent so much time in the rally on personal grievances. Despite a second term of office, where he is surrounded by sycophants and worshippers every waking minute, constantly fed news from the diminishing catalogue of favourable reportortage, constantly called “sir” and “mister president,” Trump’s fragile ego can’t let go of his past grudges, failures and criticisms. He is so thin skinned that he can’t get past the minor setbacks and criticisms we must all endure from time to time.
Trump mocked President Joe Biden’s mental acuity, how he appears in a bathing suit, (yes, someone who obviously wouldn’t dare appear in a bathing suit actually did that), repeated the proven lie that he won the 2020 election while discrediting recent polls and news coverage unflattering to him. “When you watch the fake news you see fake polls,” he said — completely without evidence. “In legitimate polls I think we’re in the 60s, the 70s.”
Trump didn’t cite those “legitimate polls,” of course, because they don’t exist. In every single poll Trump is under water. But what the polls won’t tell you is how deeply hated Trump is. Americans are turning against him by the tens of thousands with each passing day of his toxic presidency. The anemic attendance at his Nuremberg-style rally — in which he claimed that the crowd was bigger than the Harris-Walz standing room only rallies — is a case in point.
I don’t doubt that Sigmund Freud would make much of Trump’s obsession with crowd size. But then, you don’t have to be the father of modern psychology to figure out what that’s all about. That this little, little man, this inadequate whining little man, this pipsqueak of insecurities and incompetence, could actually twice get elected to the presidency is the only remarkable thing about him.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.