Drawing The RNC, Day Four

Trump's speech was perhaps the worst ever

The final night of the RNC last night was all about fighting. There were reports that a show of unity was on the schedule, but I didn’t see it. I heard it mentioned in passing, but it was drowned out or made false by preponderous attacks.

Trump’s whole family (except for his son Baron) was there in the special family box. Even Jared. They all looked perfectly coiffed and stiff, with dutiful smiles. Here are some drawings from the spectacle.

Son Eric Trump’s speech was a long litany of exagerated claims of Trump’s greatness when he was President, and hateful exagerations of the Biden administration.

It was what they call a “red meat” speech, i.e. giving the crowd what they wanted (not sure they wanted that). It was halting, waiting for applause after almost every sentence. I sensed that the audience was at times tired of the over-the-topness of it. Eric ended by saying that his father thrusting his hand into the air after being shot, “wiping the blood from his face,” was “the most corageous act in American politics.”

He also said, “Our children will understand family, our children will have values and our children will love god.”

After a while, the room was flooded with fairy-like, flowery music: Melania made an entrance. I just realized that when she walked in—as her husband had done every evening— it was through a tunnel. The cameras followed them as if they were fighters entering an arena.

I think all the preponderance of testosterone in the evening was intended to get the white male vote. Then this guy spoke about how he left his vacation with his wife to come give this little speech.

Kid Rock peformed.

Then sometime in the 10:00 pm hour, it was time for Trump to speak. He came out from backstage and stood in front of this monstrosity below. It was a dark stage with bright gold lights on the letters.

It had been reported throughout the convention that Trump had spent time revising his speech, because of the assasination attempt.

He started with a long, self-indulgant retelling of the shooting. It was exagerted and embellished with untrue details. His voice had a monotone “poor me” quality to it. He droned on and on.

Next to him onstage we could see that the hat and coat of the fireman who was killed during the assasination attempt, Cory Comperatore, were displayed (off to the side, not too close, mind you). After Trump finished telling the story of his near-death experience (saved by god, a miracle, meant to be, etc), he walked over and kissed the hat. It was showmanship in the manner we have sadly become accustomed to with Trump.

I forgot to mention, all this was in front of a fake White House.

Trump continued with lip-service about bringing the country together, uniting everyone; all with a woe-is-me tone. Then he went off the teleprompters and went dark and mean. He rambled. The drone was soporific, and after an hour of this, it was like he was hypnotizing the crowd. It really felt like he was manipulating the gathered throng with his monotone, dark, sing-songy voice that in one moment presented horrible things, then bragged that he’s the only one to fix them. Shots of the crowd from the cameras showed people were rapt, sometimes swaying, crying, raising their hands, clapping, adoring.

As I watched this, I thought this was the performance of a madman, someone who is unhinged, and perhaps too aged to know what he’s saying half the time. I thought (again) why is the media not reporting on this rambling, hateful nonsense? This man is not normal. We know that. This speech (you can’t really call it that) is apparently much like what he does at his rallies. My thinking is stuck between outrage at the notion that he actually says all these things in public on a stage, and incredulity as to who the heck the people are who are buying into this? He actually said this.

All my word captures are verbatum as best I can; I write things down as I hear them. But there was too much to capture. He talked about how countries are “sending their criminals and mental patients and murderers and flooding them into our country.” He asked the crowd if they’d seen Silence of the Lambs, and he said “Hannibal Lecter would like to have you for dinner.” Then he dropped it, it went nowhere. But I believe what he is doing by invoking Hannibal Lecter is sinister— not logical. Trump is putting an image in people’s minds that will invoke great fear. He’s viscerally suggesting: this is who is coming to your door, be very afraid.

“I will not let these killers and criminals into our country. As we bring security to our streets, we will bring stability to the world.”

I took my notes from the evening that I jotted down in real time, and added them to a drawing of Trump.

I could have redrawn the words, made them more “artistic,” but I wanted to show the raw feeling of my writing, spelling errors and all.

In all my years of watching many political conventions, I have never heard such a poorly delivered, badly written, narcissitic, unhinged, scary speech in my life. It lasted one hour and thirty-two minutes, the longest in the history of these conventions. Some say this will help the Democrats. That if there was anyone on the fence about Trump before watching him last night, this performance would not tip the scales for them. It might push them far away.

Thanks for being here. See you tomorrow.