by Richard Cameron

The National Clown Gangsta made an appearance in Phoenix yesterday to flatulate.  It was not necessary, was disruptive and had nothing to do with governance.  Drumpf the Clown just needed a worship service.  He’s addicted to them now. 

Trump essentially announced without actually doing so, a presidential pardon for a former law enforcement official (convicted Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio), that callously and deliberately disobeyed the clear and unambiguous order of a federal court. Because it is the right thing to do? No – because his shriveling but shrill remaining base needed doggy treats.

The only audience that would uncritically swallow Trump’s speech – really a drone, that lasted around an hour and a half, is an audience that has flipped the off switch on their truth meters and their reasoning faculties – which Trump’s walking dead, have done for two years now and some longer than that.

Trump could not resist the impulse to confirm what we know is the point of the appearance – an opportunity to boast about his achievements. Trump’s audience, listening to anyone else make such a statement as that below, would (presumably) think the speaker has a disturbing psychological complex (narcissism):

“Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They’re elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great.”

Trump returned to a predictable obsession – making patently false and easily contradicted claims about the size of the crowd in attendance, and grousing that the media was deliberately short changing him.

“You know I’d love it if the cameras could show this crowd, because it is rather incredible. It is incredible.”

Perhaps the most bizarre – although your results may vary, theme that Trump placed front and center, is the notion of national unity.  A call for unity would, of course, be a very laudable statement, were it from anyone that had any credibility in doing so.

Trump is not that person. No sooner than he released that false balloon, he launched into a non-stop, swerving all over the road monologue of division.  None of the themes were unfamiliar, but the crowd loves to hear them ad nauseum.  It was quintessential “us vs. them-ism” all the rest of the way through.

The reason is obvious. Trumpism is anchored on paranoia and a sense that everyone not in agreement is an “enemy”, not a fellow American. 

“They’ll say, ‘Donald Trump is in a Twitter-storm.’ These are sick people.”

Speaking in reference of the “media” (that amorphous media that does not include Breitbart, Fox News, Info-Wars or the Gateway Pundit), 

“And yes, by the way — and yes, by the way, they are trying to take away our history  and our heritage. You see that.”

There is a hearty appetite for fear mongering in Trump’s audience. They have also eagerly consumed alarmist (and fake) accounts of how a couple of nurses that escaped New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Maine Governor Paul LePage’s authoritarian quarantine, could have created a catastrophic public epidemic of Ebola.

They believed the wild claims that ceding the management of IP addresses to a non-government agency with international stakeholders, would mean that foreign governments would control “the internet“. They loved the reports that the U.S. military (Jade Helm), was preparing for martial law in Texas and across America.

Trump believes that the only thing propping up his presidency is Twitter, because the media are collectively conspiring against him.

“If I don’t have social media, I probably would not be standing.”

The Trump base lovingly embraces the suggestions Trump has repeatedly made about “opening up the libel laws” to silence his critics – particularly those who report the news, while setting up a detonation of the First Amendment. Trump spent a large portion of the speech demonizing journalism – always a crowd pleasing topic

Trump has to reiterate that he is honest, because anyone who actually had a solid reputation in that regard, would not find it necessary. Hence the frequently used ‘liar signifiers‘ as “believe me” and “I wouldn’t lie to you”.  

“I’m a person that wants to tell the truth. I’m an honest person, and what I’m saying, you know is exactly right.” 

Amusing and tragic, coming from a man, who only lies when his vocal chords and lips are in concert. Fact checkers have identified more than 1,000 lies, misrepresentations and non-factual statements since Trump took office. If he is telling the truth on anything, it can only be defined as truth in an alternate universe.

Trump found it imperative to refer once again to “the Wall”, because impractical as the whole proposition is, that audience needed reassurance.

“But believe me, if we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.” 

The wall is infinitely more important than Trump’s elderly audience on fixed incomes, getting their Social Security checks and any number of other unfavorable consequences – just to create a political showdown on a wall that is impractical, unnecessary and adds to the already dangerous level of public debt.

Confirming the suspicions that Trump has always been something of a Trojan Horse – a “plan B” for the cryptocracy to destroy the Republican party and the accompanying “R” badge that legitimizes him beyond his core base, Trump used his platform at this event to strike out at the two Arizona GOP Senators.

“And nobody wants me to talk about your other senator, who’s weak on borders, weak on crime, so I won’t talk about him. Nobody wants me to talk about him. Nobody knows who the hell he is.”

Trump continued to position himself and his audience against anyone who in any way questions or opposes him. If you do so, you are trying to take away “our culture” and “our history”. 

“They’re trying to take away our culture. They are trying to take away our history.”

It probably required no specific reference in order to realize the ‘history and culture’  he was referring to is Confederate culture and the Jim Crow era trappings of monuments, intended to intimidate blacks.

Trump dropped yet another of his endless, insincere and irresponsible empty promises to the crowd – not because there was any likelihood of it happening, but because, like so many other preposterous statements, the audience wanted to hear it.   

“So I think we’ll end up probably terminating NAFTA at some point, OK? Probably.”