It is no sinecure: listening to a speech by Donald Trump for more than an hour. You have to give something for your readers, so I looked up the speech in which he was running for the next presidency on YouTube.
Afterwards I was relieved, not only because it was over, but mainly because it was such an abysmal speech in every way. There were, of course, the familiar ingredients of previous speeches: the boasting, the complacency, the arrogance, the blatant lies, the false suggestions, the self-love disguised as patriotism, the hatred of his opponents. Trump is sometimes praised for his authenticity, but everything about him breathes exactly what he always accuses others of: fakenessinauthenticity by insincerity.
My relief arose from a new development in his manner: a certain lukewarmness and lack of inspiration, which made speech unbearably dull. His voice sounded dull, as if he could no longer muster the strength for his former pathos. I may be wishful thinking now, but it doesn’t seem inconceivable that Trump was upset by the results of the midterms. He again failed to bring Biden to his knees, and he now has to look back in his party, especially to Ron DeSantis.
It is also as if more and more of his disciples are cautiously distancing themselves from him, including his daughter Ivanka and, last but not least, his ex-Vice President Mike Pence, who is considering running against him because he “really feels that the American people long for a new leadership.”
Trump is a power thinker, he knows what such words can mean.
It was also important that he no longer referred to the 2020 election, which Biden so shamefully “stole” from him. His biggest lie suddenly no longer works, he no longer dares to use it in his most important speech of recent years. Rather, he resorted to the smaller lies to add some sparkle to his speech.
The fact checkers of the progressive American media eagerly dived into these lies. Unfortunately there are too many to mention here. I read the fact checks from The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN. Trump told grotesque lies on virtually every subject. Some examples: Trump claimed he acted decisively as the coronavirus swept into America; in doing so, he would have saved many lives and the American economy. Well no, responds The Washington Post, Trump did nothing decisive. “For weeks he downplayed the pandemic, in February 2020 he told journalists that the virus would have ‘miraculously’ disappeared by April.”
According to Trump, in 2017 he achieved the largest tax cut in US history. Wrong, responds The New Tork Times, Reagan and Obama achieved bigger tax cuts. Finally, a typical lie, intended solely to damage Biden. To ridicule his mental acuity, Trump joked: “He’s going to Idaho but says ‘welcome to the state of Florida’.” Both Biden and Trump sometimes make mistakes, CNN responds, but this example is “made up”.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 18, 2022