On Saturday night, Donald Trump addressed a packed ballroom at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gathering in Maryland.
His speech was larded with boasts, ad hominem attacks and lies. I went through the whole. damn. thing. It was a thing. The lines you need to see are below.
“We have a lot of Congress, a lot Senate, a lot of everything.”
“A lot of everything.” So true. And away we go!
“Elise Stefanik, I call her the rocket ship, where is Elise? She is a rocket.”
Stefanik has, um, rocketed into Republican House leadership thanks to a complete makeover from moderate voice within the party to full Trumpist.
“Dr. Ronny Jackson, he is a doctor, he is an admiral, where is Ronny Jackson? He told -- he said I'm the healthiest man ever to be president by far. He said if I wouldn't eat junk food I would live 200 years.”
While Jackson was the White House physican, he was asked how Trump could be in such great shape given his diet (fast food) and decided opposition to exercise. “He has incredible genes, I just assume,” Jackson responded.
“And another brave person, she started off very slow, very, very slow. She -- she is a low-key person, Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
5. “I want to thank the fire department. Look at these people, they're up the rafters. Thank you, fire department.”
Trump, as ever, is obsessed with crowd size.
6. “The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants.”
A few things here: a) What an incredibly dark vision of America b) Never accuse Trump of understatement.
“We are a nation in decline.”
Again, it’s worth remembering here that such a message from a presidential candidate would be unthinkable. For Trump, it’s become de rigeur.
“They are not coming after me. They're coming after you. And I'm just standing in their way. That's all I'm doing, I'm standing in their way”
I think this is a very effective piece of political rhetoric from Trump. The notion that he is the protector, the last man standing between people and utter collapse is a powerful one.
“We're going to complete the mission. We're going to see this battle through to ultimate victory.”
“Battle” was not chosen accidentally here. Trump views his entire life as a war against the elites/establishment.
“We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open borders zealots, and fools. But we are never going to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush.”
For all the attention that Trump’s attacks on Democrats get, his hits on his own party are equally cutting — and sometimes more so. Also, this statement is a clarion call by Trump that this is HIS party now — and that the leaders of even a decade ago are not just old news but failures.
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