Trump's post-court speech to the cult

At least he knows he's free... (for the time being!)

Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in court in New York State, then flew home to Florida and gave a speech to his followers. In this PBS coverage, the speech itself starts just after 1:26.¹

Do I need to add a disclaimer that no one should take the fact that Donald Trump says something as an indication it’s actually true?

At the start of his speech, he says of his felony indictments, “I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it would happen.”

I’m inclined to take that as about as close to a moment on sincerity as Trump ever gets in one of his professional-wrestling speech performances. Gene Lyons has long pointed to Trump’s adaptation of professional-wrestling vibes to his politics:

If you want to see the Trump method’s origins, Google videos of Dr. Jerry Graham, the bleached-blond bad guy of Sunnyside Gardens in Queens when Trump was a lad. Graham was a swaggering performer who became the first pro wrestler to sell out Madison Square Garden, where his villainy provoked fans into a riot that made The New York Times’ front page.

It’s all there. The dyed pompadour, the boasting — “I have the body that men fear and women adore,” Graham bragged — brazen defiance of the rules and hoodwinking referees. Balsa-wood folding chairs and fake blood capsules fooled the crowd into believing that real mayhem had broken out. It was among the most vivid things on TV back when Trump was in junior high.²

His niece Mary Trump, who has a podcast on Politicon and is a clinical psychologist, has been saying that this criminal indictment puts him in a place that he’s never been, and that he’s likely very worried. Because he’s not only in the embarrassing position of facing serious criminal charges, but in the court situation he is really knows that he’s not in control, a state in which he rarely finds himself. She talks about her view of that in a podcast after the court appearance.³ “You saw the look of a man haunted by the prospect of his future,” she says of it.

A key purpose of Trump’s speech seemed to be priming his faithful for additional prosecutions that may soon be incoming. He blasted the “local racist” prosecutor in Georgia who is investigating his election interference in that state. (In an odd throwback to his impeachment over Ukraine, Trump characterized his haranguing of Georgia election officials as another “perfect phone call.”)

Similarly, Trump trashed the “radical-left lunatic bomb-thrower” Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped to lead federal investigations into his document scandal and his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.

And despite a caution from the judge in his Manhattan case to lower the temperature, Trump specifically lashed out at the New York jurist: “I have a Trump-hating judge,” he insisted.⁴ [my emphasis]

Not surprisingly, Trump’s seems to be touchy about that kind of observation:

[I]n a sign of just how much the former president wishes to convince the public that he wasn’t feeling down about getting criminally charged, in the earliest hours of Wednesday morning, Trump’s spokesperson sent Rolling Stone a statement fervently disputing the characterizations of the ex-president’s mood. “These unnamed sources who speak about President Trump’s mood have no idea what they’re talking about and are simply lying to make it seem like they know what’s going on,” the spokesperson says in the statement. “In fact, they are on the outside looking in, and it’s desperate, sad, and thirsty beyond belief. They are cowards and should stop acting like cockroaches scurrying around in the dark.”⁵ [my emphasis]

Trump gets the anti-Semitic part in pretty early in his speech, calling the New York prosecutor in his case “the radical-left, George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg of New York.” And that is not an isolated crack:

The [Trump] campaign’s latest emails cast Trump and his supporters as collective victims of a “baseless witch hunt” coordinated by billionaire financier George Soros and a “globalist cabal.” Such language plays on age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories about wealthy, nationless Jews conspiring with elites to shape world events, according to Peter Montgomery, managing director of Right Wing Watch, a media watchdog.

Montgomery pointed to a fundraising email sent on Friday that refers to Bragg as a “bought-and-paid-for Soros prosecutor” carrying out his “puppet master’s plot to put me in JAIL for committing NO CRIME.” The emphasis is Trump’s, and the “puppet master” bit is a well-known anti-Jewish dog whistle.⁶

In the speech, he recycles a litany of his whines about being persecuted. It’s nasty. But the presentation comes off compared to his usual mood as “low energy,” to use a favorite Trumpian insult.

Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola had some commentary after the speech, also finding it “low energy.”⁷

Reaganite nostalgia

Trump enters to the sound of the Lee Greenwood song, "God Bless the USA."⁸

I’ve always found this to be a tolerable but dorky song. It’s a relic of the Reagan era in the 1980s, in which macho conservatives imagined themselves to be scorned by the Mean Libruls. It was the age of Rambo chic of a conspiracy theory about large numbers of US prisoners-of-war being secretly held in Vietnam, of the popular tale of the poor US soldiers returning from Vietnam being spit on by hippie girls. The latter was a remarkably popular piece of folklore. But, last I heard, no one has ever found any contemporary evidence of it ever happening.⁹ (But we all know how tricky the Deep State can be, right?)

The start of the chorus is: “And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.“ Heather “Digby” Parton occasionally pokes fun of it in her blog¹⁰, because it’s a line that sounds like it should be in an ironic song about social conditions or something. The Pledge of Allegiance at least states some positive democratic sentiments (liberty and justice for all) and a sense of positive solidarity (one nation indivisible).

But Greenwood’s chorus line has always sounded to me more like, “Well, everything sucks about my life. But at least I know I’m free!” And if we take any of this stuff seriously at all, the next line declares our American rights to be a gift from soldiers: “And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.“

Yes, it is framed as a statement of respect for fallen soldiers. But that is actually not the general democratic assumption behind human rights and citizens’ rights. The Declaration of Independence stated a classical natural-rights version of this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Constitution and the Bill of Rights state this is secular terms.

Yes, Thomas Jefferson in 1776 probably did more-or-less mean “men.” But one would think that Christian conservatives in particular might be a bit uncomfortable with the notion that people’s rights are not “endowed by their Creator” but come instead as a gift from the military. Our Trumpistas apparently don’t see it that way, though.

Full-on cult phase for Trumpism?

The conservative movement in America has been toking on what their favorite news sources have been feeding them for decades: Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart, FOX News, OAN, the Drudge Report, and various others.¹¹ The Drudge Report, by the way, still exists!¹²

And as we saw vividly on January 6, 2021, violent fanaticism is very much a part of Trump’s movement. As the German journalist Annika Brockschmidt, who has a good understanding of the US radical right noted after Trump’s Waco rally on March 25, his rhetoric has taken a tern to more obvious religious-apocalyptic rhetoric. As she notes in her written introduction to her podcast on the rally:

We look at how Trump's rhetoric has radicalized (yes, there has been another radicalization), how he dehumanizes political opponents, uses fascist motives and narratives, makes himself a divinely sent judge, promises revenge to his followers, and paints a truly apocalyptic picture of a final battle in which there can only be total victory or total defeat.¹³ [my emphasis]

Amanda Marcotte characterized the radicalism of the Waco speech this way:

[A]fter Trump's Waco speech, there should be no room for any lingering doubt as to whether Trump is leaning into his identity as a self-created cult leader in his own right. His rhetoric during his now-typical stemwinder wasn't just whiny, but downright Koresh-like in its apocalyptic tones. He described America as a "failing nation" whose "economy has collapsed," where "large packs of sadistic criminals and thieves are able to systemically rob stores and beat up their customers." He promised to deliver "retribution" for the supposed wrongs inflicted on his overwhelmingly white and Christian supporters. It brought to mind the latest Waco documentary for Netflix, which features footage of Koresh coaching a child follower to say that God would smite their enemies. 

Trump wasn't just tapping into three decades of risible far-right mythology about Koresh and the Branch Davidians. His rally also featured overt glorification of the Jan. 6 insurrection, including Trump's now-standard use of treacly music recorded by jailed defendants accused of serious crimes at the Capitol on that day. …

Trump's entire Waco spectacle was a barely-veiled threat, aimed at prosecutors or anyone else who might try to hold Trump accountable for his crimes. Trump is trying to signal that he's got legions of followers ready to kill and die for him, as did Koresh, whose unwillingness to accept the consequences for stockpiling illegal weapons led directly to dozens of deaths, including the murder of four federal officers. [my emphasis]¹⁴

And his obvious attempts to intimidate the judge in the case is in line with this cultish approach. Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor, observes:

"You do not have this behavior from a mob boss. There is a rule in organized crime. You do not do this with respect to prosecutors. You don't do this with respect to the judge. You certainly don't go after their families. It's bad business to do that," he told MSNBC, adding that it is "really just so despicable to think that you would do that. There's no level to which he is not stooping."¹⁵

1. WATCH LIVE: Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago after pleading ‘not guilty’ to 34 felony counts in New York. PBS Newshour YouTube channel. (Accessed: 2023-04-04).

2. Lyons, Gene (2023): What America needs is a good show trial of Donald Trump. Chicago Sun-Times 03/24/2023. <https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2023/3/24/23652233/donald-trump-stormy-daniels-indictment-new-york-protests-gene-lyons-column> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

3. Trump, Mary (2023): SAD. Politicon YouTube channel. (Accessed: 2023-05-04). An analysis of the charges by Jen Taub is included.

4. Dickinson, Tim (2023): Trump Struggles to Defend Himself in Bizarre Post-Arrest Speech. Rolling Stone 04/04/2023. <https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-struggles-defend-himself-mar-a-lago-speech-1234709792/> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

5. Suebsaeng, Asawin and Rawnsley, Adam (2023): Yahoo! Entertainment/Rolling Stone 04/05/2023. <https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-team-says-only-thirsty-165623081.html> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

6. Ludwig, Mike (2023): Trump Campaign Uses Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories to Fundraise Off Indictment. Truthout 04/04/2023. <https://truthout.org/articles/trump-campaign-uses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-to-fundraise-off-indictment/> (Accessed: 2023-04-04).

7. TYT Reacts to Trump's Post-Arraignment Speech. TYT YouTube channel 04/04/2023. (Accessed: 2023-04-04).

8. Greenwood, Lee (1984): God Bless the USA. AZ Lyrics. <https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leegreenwood/godblesstheusa.html> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

9. Lembcke, Jerry (1998): The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York & London: New York University Press.

10. Parton, Heather (Digby) (2011): At least we know we’re free. Digby's Hullabaloo 12/06/2011. <https://digbysblog.net/2011/12/06/at-least-we-know-were-free/> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

11. Mittell, Jason & Tryon, Chuck (2016): America's fake news problem predates Facebook. VOX 11/21/2016. <https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/21/13682574/fake-news-facebook-fox-news-conservative-radio> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

12. Drudge Report. Wikipedia 01/06/2023. <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Drudge_Report&oldid=1131862233> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

13. Brockschmidt, Annika (2023): USA Update 130: Liturgie der Gewalt bei Trumps Waco-Rally. Annika Brockschmidt Patreon website 03/26/2023. <https://www.patreon.com/posts/usa-update-130-80572765> (Accessed: 2023-05-04). Translation from the German is mine.

14. Marcotte, Amanda (2023): Donald Trump wants to be the charismatic leader of an apocalyptic cult: Yeah, it's an overreach. Salon 03/28/2023. <https://www.salon.com/2023/03/28/donald-wants-to-be-the-charismatic-leader-of-an-apocalyptic-cult-yeah-its-an-overreach/> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).

15. Derysh, Igor (2023): “Thuggish behavior”: Experts warn Trump “tempting fate” by attacking judge’s daughter after warning. Salon 04/05/2023. <https://www.salon.com/2023/04/05/thuggish-behavior-experts-warn-tempting-fate-by-attacking-judges-daughter-after-warning/> (Accessed: 2023-05-04).