Melancholy music. A tone of hopeless wandering. Despair.
Readers who are disgusted by Donald Trump tend to underestimate him.
Music is a form of body language.
Trump rallies experimented last summer with turning on a musical underscore for the final minutes of a Trump rally. Rally-goers responded by holding up the index finger of an outstretched arm -- a salute. 
It was a Q-Anon gesture. It appeared reminiscent of a crowd at a 1940 Hitler speech or perhaps religious devotees of a Jim Jones or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Oregonians had direct exposure to cultists in the early 1980s when a religious group attempted to take over the government in the town of Antelope in tiny Wasco County, using among other things, mass poisoning of the town's citizens to suppress the vote.
Trump has grown bolder. His campaign returned to playing a musical underscore to Trump's voice in the closing minutes of his speeches. Here are 38 seconds of it, from a CSPAN clip:
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Transcript:
Russia and China are holding summits to carve up the world, and perhaps most importantly we are a nation that is no longer respected or listened to on the world stage. No respect. They think we are run by fools. We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke. and we are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, and faith. We are a nation whose economy is collapsing into a cesspool of ruin. . . .
Trump is a skilled performer in front of an audience. His 2016 rally on a spring evening in Boca Raton drove that home to me. He arrived in a helicopter which circled overhead. Upbeat music pounded out of giant speakers. A huge flag. A speech crescendoing in "win and win and win and win." And then the music theme to the movie The American President.
In my March 15, 2016 post I warned that Trump understood stagecraft. I warned that he was formidable and might win, something widely thought laughable at the time.
Trump's message is simple and clear and Hillary is complicated and boring. The problems and solutions posited by Trump are memorable--build the wall; foreigners take advantage of us; don't take lobbyist money; America for Americans; win win win win. Hillary lists policies and disadvantaged groups and legislative solutions that will be slow and difficult. Trump is a better salesman and showman. He made the grandest of Grand Entrances. All hail the great man. It was show biz great theater and it worked, because it was very good show biz and very good theater.
I saw it coming.
The musical underscore he is using is easy to mock. It is over-the-top exaggerated. It is too much. The Spotify app immediately links the music to Richard Feelgood's site where he has musical clips with different moods. This one is titled Wwg1wga, which stands for "Where We Go One We Go All." Surely the Q-Anon tie is a mistake. Right? Isn't this too much?
I remember getting coaching in a drama class I took in high school. Gesture big, the teacher said. You are on stage. An opera singer needs to project all the way to the people in the back rows. Be unmistakable.
Trump gestures big. Trump isn't just saying America is a cesspool of ruin. This is operatic. He is performing it. Words, tone, setting, staging, and music. He has a message: America is a cesspool and he will fix it.
Biden, like Hillary, is competent, complicated, and compared to Trump, unexciting. If people are restless for change -- and I think they are -- this bodes ill. Trump is crazy and vile, but he knows how to project his message.
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14 comments:
“Trump is crazy and vile, but he knows how to project his message.”
Boy, does he! His Christmas message is a case in point: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. MERRY CHRISTMAS!”
But Trump isn’t a threat to our democracy. He’s just a barker for the freak show that conservatism has become. The real threat we face is from his supporters, drawn to him by the fear, anger, hatred and violence he promotes. There was a time when election denial, death threats and racism were considered fringe, but Trump has succeeded in making them SOP in the Republican Party.
It wasn't Hitler who wreaked such havoc on the world. It was his Nazis.
A competent plan to defeat Trump might be figuring out which Democratic candidate is open to six months of theatrical training, and then nominating them instead of Biden, who could not possibly benefit from training like that.
Or alternatively, sticking with Biden and hoping for an act of God.
The Democrats royally screwed this country in 1972 when they forced the switch from “smoke filled rooms” to primaries, and thereby disempowered the parties from choosing their candidates. Trump is the result.
I don't think we underestimate him, as you have told us repeatedly. We are just really SICK of him, at least I am.
Not everyone shares YOUR tedious obsession with Orange American Hitler.
I well remember that March 2016 blog post, and remember sharing it often. Todays post is somber, to say the least.
I offer this in counterpoint, as it seems particularly apropos this December morning.
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/december-25-2023?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3dcei
Posted for Michael TrigoboffA competent plan to defeat Trump might be figuring out which Democratic candidate is open to six months of theatrical training, and then nominating them instead of Biden, who could not possibly benefit from training like that.
Or alternatively, sticking with Biden and hoping for an act of God.
The Democrats royally screwed this country in 1972 when they forced the switch from “smoke filled rooms” to primaries, and thereby disempowered the parties from choosing their candidates. Trump is the result.
Anonymous @ 10:34
So you would prefer that Peter just ignore the Orange Menace ?
I have a better idea, why don't you go someplace else to post your bile ?
The anonymous post claiming that Democrats “royally screwed this country” by forcing the primary system on us in 1972 is good for a chuckle but probably not worth repeating twice. The evolution of the primary system actually began in 1912, and the Democratic Party certainly didn’t force it on Republicans.
“Anonymous” tells us Trump is the master of the yuck factor and that because Democrats appeal to reason, they’ll never be as good as he is at being stupid and disgusting. I certainly hope not. In these trying times, we need at least one party that hasn’t become totally revolting.
To Mike S
The carnival barker motives the populous to “check it out!” Into the tent the crowd starts to move soon it’s something “everybody doing it” and there is the bandwagon effect leading the sheep to the movement takes over. Without Trump there’s no mouthpiece spewing propaganda. Trump is now THE MOVEMENT!
If Anonymous is sick of Trump now, think how sick he will be if he is our president for four years again.
About half of Americans seem to support him. That dismays me. It mystifies me. But it is the sad reality. I want people to understand Trump the way we would understand any disease or infection that has captured the minds of Americans.
I urge people who think I am obsesses with the person who has infected the minds of our fellow countrymen to add to the understanding by writing a Guest Post essay of about 500 words that adds your insights. If anonymous is tired of mine, speak up and tell the world yours.
John F –
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that Trump isn’t basic to the creation of his cult, but I believe his followers’ willingness to lap up the puke he spews was already instilled in them. He’s just telling them what they want to hear and without their contempt for America’s founding principles and values, he’d be impotent.
Trump’s loyal, voting support is about 20-25% of the total American electorate. Against an average potted plant that should be a losing proposition. The reason the race appears close is that Trump if nominated is facing one, but one with a problematic record. That said, as a lifelong Republican it is primarily my party’s shame that Trump remains a factor at all heading into 2024.
Clear, concise and accurate – well said, LD.
My father was a lifelong Republican who risked his life multiple times flying missions over Germany to defeat Hitler in WWII. I was sorry when he passed, but I’m glad he isn’t here to see what his party has become. Bush was demoralizing enough.
My Dad was a lifelong Republican who entered the Navy at 15, January 1944, to help fight the Japanese who wounded his brother at Pearl Harbor. He died in 1987, barely 59, largely as a result of the PTSD which followed his service in the South Pacific. I, too, am glad he's not here to see what his Party has become.
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