Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:30 pm
NBC News’ Katy Tur, who once had the Secret Service rush to her protection after Donald Trump attacked her wrote that,
“On my way out of Trump’s last rally ever, a man and his daughter – both in MAGA hats – thank me for my reporting. A lovely way to end 500 days.”
One imagines the more so given how many days were ugly instead. It could as easily been a guy in a ‘Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required’ t-shirt.
Or what CNN’s Sara Murray got:
One guy started screaming "f— you" at the top of his lungs and giving us the double finger.
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) November 8, 2016
If anyone deserved a fairy tale ending, it was Katy Tur.
The man she covered could not have felt like he was in a fairy tale, facing a crowd of 11,000 people to Clinton’s 33,000.
One wonders, if to some, the whole experience already feels like a dream, or perhaps, a nightmare. Trump reached the end of his road last night, and when he could have made it about more than Donald Trump when he needed to make it about more than Donald Trump, he found he could only talk about himself.
“A winding road of his greatest hits,” as Tur’s fellow correspondent at NBC News, Ali Vitali put it.
Vitali tweeted some observations about Trump’s final speech of his campaign and they bear thinking on:
This is my last Trump rally. I realize now for all the talk of tone shifts, this is the same speech we've always heard. (1/X)
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) November 8, 2016
She added,
No speech stands out as more special than another in terms of substance; some were just billed/hyped differently. Core message always same. https://t.co/s2BG2anWF1
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) November 8, 2016
And a final thought showing that however much enthusiasm Trump’s “movement” generated, at its core it was stagnant, a song in a sad minor key endlessly repeated:
For instance: on this final night you'd assume a different message. A clearly new tone or vibe. Not so! The usual stump, riffs, complaints. https://t.co/c74GMEGhjY
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) November 8, 2016
Complaints.
Trump complained he didn’t have any celebrities on stage with him, and then in a fit of sour grapes claimed Hillary supporters only showed up for the music last night and then left, but CBS News’ Sopan Deb tells us,
It's late, but a decent chunk of the crowd here started filing out shortly after Trump started speaking.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) November 8, 2016
Trump said at his last rally, after spending all that time talking about himself, “For every parent who dreams for their child and every child who dreams for their future. I say I will fight for you.”
But nothing about his campaign gave the idea that he was doing anything for anybody but himself. Maybe people finally realized that. Maybe they’ve just given up.
Perhaps the lesson here is that a “massive exercise in ego,” as Jason Easley put it here last night, can only get you so far. The fact is that no amount of Trump delusions will change the fact that as the sun rises today, Hillary Clinton leads in nearly every national poll.
Trump bragged last night that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady called to say he had voted for him, but Brady seems to be afflicted with the same malaise as those who went home early and Trump with the same dishonesty that has plagued his campaign.
When asked, Brady admitted to reporters that no, he hadn’t voted yet, even though his team had a bye week with time to do the things an athlete is enthusiastic about.
There were more sour grapes last night as Trump said celebrities campaigning demeans the political process, even though that is precisely what Trump is himself: a celebrity, the star of a reality TV show, a rich guy who was really good at self-promotion.
So yes, Donald Trump the celebrity demeaned the American political process. And another celebrity, one who actually supports him, didn’t bother to go out and vote when he had the time.
And maybe that’s a fitting epithet of the Trump “movement” of 2016.
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