How Trump's speech can crush his past

My Trump speech BINGO card. Plus, I'm going to get a few things off my chest.

Hoo boy, I can already smell the burning plastic from keyboards smoking with rage as our readers break out their lexical flamethrowers. Calm down. The rhetoric is already at such a fever pitch that my mother would have the isopropyl alcohol and facecloth ready to douse our heads¹. I’m going to talk about Trump in rather dispassionate, analytical terms, and lay out some thoughts that could sound discordant to those in certain sensitive emotive states.

See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

First, let me get some things off my chest. If you believe there’s dark conspiracies operating regarding recent events, you’re smoking something you bought from a guy behind the 7-Eleven.

No, President Joe Biden’s positive test for COVID-19 is not a ruse. I’m certain he really got the ‘rona. I’m praying for his quick recovery. No, Biden’s communications team didn’t suddenly become competent.

No, Trump’s would-be killer was not a plant to make the former president look good as a hero. No, the Secret Service is not some hive of DEI, body-affirming glams incapable of protecting Ronald McDonald. No, saying to an audience—out loud—that your birthday wish is “don’t miss Trump next time” won’t buy you the kind of cancellation that #MeToo or #DontSayGay would get. About that: Tenacious D, Jack Black’s musical hobby horse, cancelled its tour, not because of social pressure (it’s not like some famous people don’t silently share that abominable sentiment), but because the “system” works. I saw an explanation online, and as a risk management person, I get it.

See, every concert venue has to be insured for liability, against things like violence, drunkenness, accidents, and the like. Saying something so controversial as to attract people who are intent on mayhem and injury will necessarily increase the reticence of bean-counters who work for insurance carriers to offer coverage, or to greatly increase the premium and requirements to the venue for the event. Therefore, a straightforward promoter deal goes from profitable to impossible. Hence, tour cancelled. The system worked, which is why B-list acts like Tenacious D don’t get a pass or second chance. They are not financially worth the risk.

Circling back to the Secret Service: it’s worthy of Congress to investigate how a former president and current nominee of the Republican Party in an election year (the “protectee”) was so poorly protected at a rally as to allow a bespectacled 20-year-old with an AR-15 to climb to the top of a building, spend 20 (!) minutes crawling on the roof while onlookers alerted police, point his weapon at a local cop, shooing him away, then taking a fairly accurate bead on Trump, while the countersniper team could have taken him out at any time with just a radio call. It is also more than appropriate to be skeptical of Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle’s explanation why the building where the shooter set up didn’t have patrols on the roof was “we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.”

Some things just insult your intelligence.

It’s completely apropos of this occasion to comment on President Biden’s agedness and its physical and mental effects. The public has not forgotten the media’s Olympic-worthy gymnastics swinging from “it’s how Joe Biden is” to “get out!” in less than a week’s time.

Now with my chest clear, on to the bloodletting.

Donald Trump has a big challenge ahead of him. He has to give a speech so good that people forget he’s a convicted felon who falsified company records to cover up an illegal campaign contribution used to pay off a porn star who claimed he had sex with her while his wife Melania was pregnant with their son Barron. People have to forget that Trump actively promoted conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election as “rigged,” refused to accept the electoral results and state-by-state totals, was fine with his lawyers filing indecently frivolous lawsuits alleging the same, and his personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani causing the lives of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia to be threatened.

People have to forget that Trump actively promoted the “stop the steal” movement based on non-existent “Kraken” evidence of a stolen election that didn’t happen, in order to motivate them to “fight” for him to stay in power. Which is illegal. They have to forget that Trump exerted the immense pressure of his office to replace key figures in his administration, including the Secretary of Defense, and attempt to suborn a session of Congress using his own vice president as the impetus for an auto-coup; that over 10,000 people showed up for a January 6th, 2021 rally at which he spoke and told them to “fight like hell” then sent them to march to the Capitol. That he stubbornly sat in his office watching the mayhem, which led directly to Ashley Babbitt’s death, for two hours.

They have to forget that the heavily-armed security forces in the Senate chamber that day, including Secret Service assigned to protect Vice President Mike Pence, were locked and loaded, ready to fire upon anyone who breached the chamber while officials occupied it; that the mob only narrowly escaped a massacre because of the actions of a quick-thinking Capitol Police officer. People have to forget that Trump still refuses to apologize or express any remorse for those actions on January 6th, and in fact refers to many of the violent participants as victims.

People have to forget all that, plus the many, many other crooked and corrupt things Trump has done over his long career. To be accurate, not everyone has to forget those things, just enough people to get him elected.

And Trump has to say just enough things to push the “nice” button with some folks who don’t forget all those things but are exhausted from the political battles we’ve witnessed these last eight years.

Here’s how Trump could pull this off.

But first, let’s turn to Sen. J.D. Vance’s speech. The speech is meaningful, as was Vance’s selection for the ticket. The GOP is not going for the “big tent” in terms most political pundits are familiar with on a daily basis. Trump is not carving up the electorate in the tried-and-true lines of race, ethnicity, and economic station. Those things do factor in, but they are the minor chords. If Trump wanted the traditional big tent, he would not have picked a white guy from Ohio to be his running mate.

The white guy from Ohio brings a few things: youth (he’s not even 40), accomplishment in terms of overcoming a humble beginning (U.S. Marine, Yale Law School), along with a popular, easy-to-access, compelling life story (Hillbilly Elegy). Vance can think on his feet, schmooze with the billionaires (he worked for Peter Thiel helping to run an investment fund), and also connect with the rust belt, like Trump has. The GOP big tent is calling for the young, hopeless, disaffected, drug-addicted, and their parents to pay attention.

Vance’s speech highlighted the contradiction in the GOP and Trump’s big tent:

We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike. A leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for American companies and American industry. A leader who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Green New Scam and fights to bring back our great American factories.

The president of the Teamsters spoke earlier at the convention. He didn’t play by the traditional Republican script. He savaged big business and promoted the unions. But the point of Sean O’Brien being in Milwaukee was not the speech itself. It was the fact he gave it at all. This enraged Democrats, which was the point. Also, Elon Musk publicly endorsed Donald Trump, and pledged $45 million a month to fund a super PAC in support of his campaign.

The richest man in the world, who hates unions, loves Trump and believes that another term with progressives running the White House would be a disaster for our nation. The president of the Teamsters took the stage (without endorsing) at the Republican national convention. And Sen. J.D. Vance gave a speech you might hear from a Democratic Party stump.

But, my fellow Americans, here in this stage and watching at home, this moment is not about me; it’s about all of us, and it’s about who we’re fighting for.

It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs.

It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.

It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world, when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country.

Vance touched on the flood of illegal aliens, China and fentanyl, inflation and the economy, energy policy, and the working people of Kentucky, and the “the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation.” It was a big tent speech, aiming right at the heart of the Democratic Party coalition—the part that’s not ultra-progressive, bi-coastal, affluent, educated, and privileged.

Trump told Washington Examiner reporter Salena Zito (who wrote an excellent treatise on the 2016 election, her book “The Great Revolt”) that his speech was going to be a “humdinger” but after last weekend, it’s going to be a “whole different speech.” The speech, as I mentioned earlier, has to do a lot of work. It will likely be a good speech, if not a great speech. Trump has better speechwriters than President Biden, and more importantly, Trump can give an effective speech, while Biden is at best hit-or-miss.

In 2016, Trump’s acceptance speech was great. It was so great, that, short of having Trump be the one giving it, that speech could have won the election on its own.

I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.

I AM YOUR VOICE.

In 2020, Trump was robbed of the ability to give that kind of speech, because of the pandemic. He will get to make up for it tonight.

I do not think Trump will focus on the 2020 “stolen election” in his speech. If he does, it will only remind people of his troubles—the ones he wants them to forget. He will mention the unending legal prosecutions against him, and if you have a word BINGO card, I’d put “lawfare” on it.

He will touch on President Biden’s age, but possibly only briefly. Perhaps he will wish the president good health and recovery from COVID-19. Biden’s infirmities speak for themselves. Trump will focus on what has happened the last four years. He will reinforce Vance’s speech, that Biden’s policies have not led to prosperity for most Americans, only for the financially well-off. It has not led to real wage increases, only real price increases. And the Gold Star families are a gold mine.

Trump’s theme for tonight’s speech is that he fights, unendingly, all-in, committed with his life. He will approach with what appears to be humility—possibly genuine—thanking God for sparing his life at the hands of a would-be assassin. He will thank his family and those around him, the Secret Service, and first responders. He may focus on the kind of world that produces young, disaffected, disconnected loners who would, for no discernible reason, take a shot at a public figure.

Do we want that kind of world? Do we want the kind of country where every problem is over-engineered and technocrats decide what solutions are needed, working backwards from their desired outcome? Do we want a nanny-state run by runaway progressives who only value their own worldview and educational backgrounds? Do we want to rob the American Dream and replace it with some political caste system?

Trump’s speech—its primary job—is to reignite the American passion for individualism, achievement, underdog, and overcoming. Joe Biden always talks about his “Scranton” as if it’s a gauzy memory of a place that really never existed. Trump will bring the working-class into sharp focus, connecting the billionaires who are writing our future work with the workers who struggle to get jobs today.

The speech, it if works, needs to recognize what my brother Jay wrote about in his “Spirit of ‘76.” Most Americans aren’t interested in policies and high-fallutin’ ideals. They want to feel like they’re self-governing, not governed. Americans want to feel like they are participating in government, not expected to simply comply with its demands. If you have your BINGO card, add “sheep” to the list. I wouldn’t go as far as “sheeple” (but you never know).

The people Trump wants to hear his message don’t care that tariffs are a historically bad idea that tend to end with bad results. They want to know why they can’t get jobs building and making things but Mexican and Chinese workers can. They want to know why American factories have closed and moved jobs overseas. They don’t want to hear Barack Obama say those jobs aren’t coming back—even if Obama was right.

Trump will make the case for unity. That if we work together, unions and billionaires, Christians and non-religious people, white, Black, and legal immigrant, we can take our country back. We can roll back the tide of illegal immigration, secure our borders, stop another generation of Americans from despair, crime, and poverty. That’s his message.

Trump might say he is willing to take a bullet for you. He might play with the phrase that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, but he never expected to be the one getting shot. He may say he’s willing to go to court, or to prison, to save America.

If he gives that kind of speech, he may pull it off. He may get enough people to forget about his troubles and his character to swing polls a few more points and add nails to Biden’s political coffin.

Trump’s speech—if it’s as good or better than 2016—could accomplish a political miracle for him. It can crush his past. And do it to thunderous applause.

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1. Don’t use alcohol to bring a fever down.