Donald Trump has a habit of talking absolute nonsense — using the most amount of words to make as little sense as possible — and yet during his latest rally he actually got right to the heart of his entire presidential campaign. While giving a speech to his gathered supporters in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 9, Trump decided to say it exactly how it is for once.
It was an excruciatingly hot day on the strip, with temperatures as high as 103 degrees Fahrenheit in Vegas’ Sunset Park where Trump’s rally was being held. Throughout his speech, doddering Don made light of the thousands of people baking under the scorching sun, which reached a peak when he told the crowd that he didn’t care about their health because he “just want[s] your vote.”
“Do you feel the breeze? I don’t want anybody going on me,” he said, apparently in jest. “We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.”
Of course, the moment has left Trump’s detractors with their jaws on the floor — or, at least, it would have if it hadn’t been plainly obvious that this is how he sees his supporters all along. As Darth Orangeus’ old nemesis, Mark Hamill, went viral for commenting: “I love it when he accidentally tells the truth.”
Of course, Trump loyalists will no doubt point out that the former president was joking when he made this comment. In fact, Trump himself pre-empted the fallout of his remarks as soon as he said them. He told the crowd that reporters in attendance would no doubt take his words “out of context” and act like he’d said a “horrible” thing.
What Donald failed to realize is that we can quote his words in their full context and it still comes across like he’s said a horrible thing. There’s a thin line between just kidding around and saying the quiet part loud, as Krusty the Clown memorably put it in The Simpsons. He might as well have said: “Thank you for voting for me in 2016. Let’s just say it moved me… TO A BIGGER HOUSE!”
The really unsettling thing about Trump’s bald-faced admission is that it received a roar of laughter from the crowd. Mark Hamill’s space mom Natalie Portman might have something to say about that. “So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause,” Padme Amidala famously said about Palpatine’s rise to power in Revenge of the Sith. Except in this case, it’s less thunderous applause and more like braying laughter.
