I gutted it out!

I watched Trump's CPAC oration so you didn't have to...and I'm still here.

The headline:  If they listen to Trump, Republicans will be running on “illegal immigration” and against “Biden’s radical border policy” in 2022 and probably 2024 as well.  He spent the first 20 to 30 minutes running his mouth about Biden opening up the border, letting in the criminals, giving lawyers – “and they’re pretty good ones, too” – to immigrants applying for asylum, letting in the “caravans,” “tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them, you wait, it’ll be millions” coming across the “Biden border.”  And boo-hoo, they’re not building his wall, and on and on.

I have a sentence in my notebook, “He hasn’t even taken a breath between lies,” which I took during the immigration rant, but it could apply to the whole speech.  It was like he couldn’t get the lies out fast enough, his head swiveling from one teleprompter screen to the other, looking straight ahead only when he went into one of his famous asides, nearly every one of which ended with “like they’ve never seen before…like has never been done before…like nobody could believe…like nobody thought could be done,” and a half dozen other variations on the same self-congratulatory theme.

Then came…wait for it…15 minutes of bragging about the fantastic job he did with COVID – calling it “the China virus” of course.  “We did 20 million vaccinations, all Biden is doing is following our plan, building on our success…I pushed the FDA like they’ve never been pushed before…we bet 10 billion dollars on the vaccines before we even knew there was going to be one.”  I read a story in the New Yorker recently that said the basic research for a COVID vaccine had been done at Vanderbilt University Medical School within a month of the virus being identified and DNA sequenced.  The FDA knew there would be a vaccine as far back as March of last year, according to the story.  In other words, Trump made a “bet” on a sure thing.

At the end of his COVID rant, a cheer went up: “We love you!  We love you!  We love you!” and Trump paused to bathe in it for a minute before launching into a rather lengthy self-congratulation that the chant, “we love you,” had never been done before, not even for Ronald Reagan, “who we liked very much,” he assured the audience.  He told them he asked his “political professionals” if a crowd had ever chanted “we love you” for Reagan, and he said, “nobody could remember it, so it never happened.”

Then came what they all had been waiting for, how the Republican Party was going to have to pass “election reform.”  Pay attention folks, because we’re already seeing bills proposed in Republican controlled states, and this is what they’ll be trying to do nationally. He wants “one election day, only one.”  Pandemonium from the crowd.  “No more early voting, no more mail-in voting,” more pandemonium.  Absentee voting only if you’re in the military or living overseas or you can certify that you are sick or disabled. Cheers.  National voter ID law.  Insane cheering. A “100 percent requirement” that citizenship be verified for every voter. Pandemonium. Something called “universal signature matching,” that is apparently a direct reference to what he wanted in Georgia and didn’t get.  He also wants a “chain of custody protection for every ballot.” No more “ballot dumps” in the middle of the night, no more “stopping the count at 3:02 a.m.” whatever that means, but the crowd gets it, apparently having read about it on some dark web lunatic website.  And he told the crowd to “go after the Supreme Court, because they didn’t have the guts to do anything about it.”

Insane cheering for attacking the court he put three certifiable right-wing nuts on, because they wouldn’t take up the “20 cases we filed” through the Texas lawsuit joined by other Republican states, because “we didn’t have standing.”  Throws his hands up, like, what are you going to do?  Loud booing. 

“But all the election security in the world will be worthless without free speech,” he screams, suddenly raising his voice.  “Because they’re taking away free speech from conservatives.  There is no debate anymore, because they won’t allow our side to be heard.” More insane cheering, and he’s off to the races attacking Twitter and Facebook and Instagram by name and big tech in general.  “Punish them every time they silence conservative voices,” he screams at the crowd, and they obediently go wild. 

Now some Republican Party red meat.  He name-checks every single Republican Senator and every member of the House who voted to impeach or convict him.  “Get rid of them all!” he screams, singling out Liz Cheney as a “war monger from Wyoming…get rid of her!”  I’m surprised they didn’t break into “lock her up,” but somehow the moment passed, and he went on, “I will be actively working to elect strong, tough Republicans, because we’re in a struggle to save America from the Democrats.  They are vicious, they’re no good, they hate America, but they stick together, so we have to stick together.  No more of these RINOs like Romney and the rest of them!  Kick them out!”  He tells everyone should go to his website, Donald J. Trump dot com, and the Save America Pac, and donate. 

Suddenly, he’s off again talking about the election, babbling about something called “bell weather counties,” apparently a list of counties he heard about whose election results accurately predicted every presidential election “going back for decades.”  He won 18 of 19 of them, and how did that happen, that somehow he “lost” the election. Then he’s talking about some Republican senator he talked to after the election, who told Trump he thought he was going to lose, and then the day before election day, he walked out and saw all these Trump flags and American flags, and he knew he was going to win.  And he did!  But you know what happened?  He got fewer votes in his state than Trump did, and Trump lost!  How did that happen? 

He was in a kind of reverie, recalling his “win” that turned into a loss, and then he caught himself and went for a big screaming finish listing all of his obsessions – immigration, and trade deals, and his fabulous economy that Biden inherited from him – and then he’s waving his arms, and they’re playing him off with “YMCA” by the Village People. 

Of course they are, because a disco group from the 1970’s comprised of humorously costumed gay stereotypes singing a song about having sex in a gay gathering place is so Donald Trump, so Republican Party, so winning for the 21st Century.  He waved his arms, smiling at the crowd as they sang along:

Young man, there's a place you can go
I said, young man, when you're short on your dough
You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time

It's fun to stay at the YMCA
It's fun to stay at the YMCA

They have everything for you men to enjoy
You can hang out with all the boys

It's fun to stay at the YMCA
It's fun to stay at the YMCA

You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal
You can do whatever you feel