Terrifying. Unpredictable. Jaw-dropping. The looming election can be described as many things, but boring isn’t really one of them. This is mostly thanks to the mind-boggling support Donald Trump seems to drag along with him, regardless of whatever scandal he’s reveling in that week.
Despite his serious cognitive decline, close personal friendships with famous sex traffickers, and his uncanny habit of finding both the dumbest and most offensive thing to say in any given situation, he continues to be a force in American politics. A large part of that is because his soundbytes can be packaged up in social media-friendly videos, and his compelte lack of seriousness can be edited into something resembling charisma.
However, attendees at Trump’s most recent rallies are finding that, when he truly is unfiltered, the man who could become president despite his cartoonish villainy is more Abe Simpson than Mr. Burns.
Anybody who has been studying transcripts of Trump rallies will agree that they make the reader feel like both themselves and the former Apprentice host are having a stroke. He’s been rambling incoherently at his events since his 2016 run, yet age has further eroded his ability to make sense. Much like America’s infrastructure, it’s clear his mind is crumbling at an alarming rate.
His winding talks at least once circled around a real point (like his famous rant about his MIT- attending uncle that came during a section of his speech about technology; the uncle apparently gave the younger Trump a deep understanding of “nuclear,” presumably by some kind of osmosis). Now, though, Trump is seemingly performing sex acts on innocent microphones, and putting together the sorts of sentences that only those learning and losing their ability to form language can construct. And his audience is not loving it.
In his recent, poorly attended Raleigh, NC rally, there were a number of event-goers in prominent places who appeared to be asleep. Whether or not they entered the full REM stage can be disputed, but as somebody who has seen people in 9am lectures and classes after a big night out, it’s easy to tell that many of these people are definitely crossing over into slumber.
Given Trump’s incomprehensible support among the uncomfortably religious, there is a chance that these people were praying. Then again, that prayer may have also been for the event to end, so they could go home and convince themselves he is the chosen one. And, if America isn’t careful, he just might be.