Donald Trump’s townhall rally in the Philadelphia area Monday night started out like so many of his other events over the last decade.
He took a few softball questions, rattled off his usual talking points on immigration and the economy. All seemed, well, normal(ish).
Then someone in the crowd had a medical emergency. The event was paused. And just as it was about to get back going, someone else had a medical emergency.
Rather than re-start the Q and A, Trump decided to play DJ. Yes, DJ.
“Let’s not do any more questions,” Trump told the audience. “Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a musical. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”
And that’s exactly what he did. For the next 30+ minutes, Trump orchestrated a playlist — that ran the gamut from “Rich Men North of Richmond” to “Hallelujah” to, of course, “Y.M.C.A.”
Trump danced, bobbed his head and sort of just stared out into the crowd. He eventually left the stage — shaking hands as he went.
As the New York Times described the scene:
Mr. Trump’s crowd cheered in approval, an indication of how his supporters flock to his rallies to be in his presence as much as to hear him make political points with which they are intimately familiar.
This is a reminder, just in case you need another one, that Trump’s appeal to the base of his party is best understood as a cult of personality. (This is not true for everyone who will vote for Trump. But it is absolutely true for the base.)
They just want to be near him. They want to bask in the definitional glow of him and the movement he has built. What he says matters WAY less to them.
It is literally inconceivable that any other politician would do something like this. And if they did, the crowd would likely wonder, well, what the hell was going on. And rightly so!
For Trump, it’s just another day on the campaign trail. Remarkable.
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The Morning: Yes, it's a cult of personality