Trump’s freewheeling speeches offer a dark vision of a second term
Since bursting onto the presidential scene in 2015, Trump has transformed the American public’s conception of a political rally, taking the stage after hours of eardrum-shattering decibels of a self-curated playlist and offering a spectacle that changes depending on the place, the news cycle and the former president’s mood.
On the last Friday in February, the day before the South Carolina primary, Trump took the stage in Rock Hill, S.C., where he spoke for just over an hour and a half. A close examination of his remarks that day offers an anatomy of a Trump rally speech.
Like many of his recent speeches, it was long and laden with resentments, offering a dark vision for the nation that terrifies Democrats and animates his Republican base. It touched on recurring themes, including his election denialism, his promise of a sudden transformation in another Trump term and his claims of persecution and martyrdom.
Perhaps more importantly, Trump’s stump speech provides a road map of what a second Trump term might look like — fulfilling his promises to root out the so-called “deep state” of civil servants, harshly cracking down on illegal immigration and crime, and pulling back from the world stage. It also reveals many of his weaknesses as a candidate, such as sometimes slurring his words, confusing names of world leaders and attacking minorities in offensive ways.
At times, Trump hews to a teleprompter, while at others he careens gleefully off script. He can channel both comedy and rage, charisma and revenge.
Over time, his stump speech has evolved, though certain hallmarks remain. One constant is that it is certain to contain a slew of falsehoods and mistruths, ranging from hyperbole to outright lies, like his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
The Washington Post Fact Checker found that in the four years of his presidency, Trump offered a total of 30,573 untruths — an average of roughly 21 erroneous claims a day.
Themes of retribution and vengeance are also central, hovering like an ominous storm cloud. In a closing riff that has become a staple of every rally, Trump promises to “demolish the deep state,” to “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists” and to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”
“We will rout the fake news media, we will drain the swamp and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all,” he declares.
Steven Cheung, campaign spokesman, said in an email statement to The Post: “President Trump is the only one speaking the truth and he’s going to continue shoving it down the media’s throat every single day, and there is nothing they can do about it.”
Trump fans, meanwhile, come hoping to hear his greatest hits, which have changed over time, from a call-and-response about the nation’s southern border to, now, boasting incorrectly of being indicted more times than Al Capone.
Last month, taking the stage in Rock Hill to the tunes of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” Trump enthused about the crowd size — “Wow, that’s a lot of people!” — and then he began to speak.