I wish I liked horror movies more.
Otherwise, I would be a lot more excited about the fact that Donald Trump is going to inflict another campaign upon the American people.
His campaign kickoff would have included a perfect scene for a horror movie or maybe just a disaster movie. The room at Mar-A-Lago was full, and when Trump’s speech went on and on and on past the expected 35 minutes, a number of people decided to get up and leave.
Imagine their surprise when they approached the exits to see that security guards weren’t allowing anyone out of the room until Trump stopped spewing.
The captive audience at Trump’s event had it even worse than people watching on Fox News.
Even those who couldn’t bear to change the channel were fortunate that Fox host and Trump towel boy Sean Hannity cut away from the speech before Trump finished.
I don’t watch any political speeches live. If there’s anything about them that interests me, I watch excerpts on the Internet later. And quite frankly, reading what Trump says is about as much as I’m willing to expose myself to his thinking.
Amazingly, some of Trump’s minions see him as not only having a First Amendment right to speak, but a right to demand that we watch and listen. A former Trump spokesperson, speaking on something called Real America’s voice, give a completely new spin on the Bill of Rights.
“They don’t want the American people to hear directly from the biggest leader of the greatest political movement in our history,” said Liz Harrington. “So, I do suspect they’ll try to censor and cut away. However, the people are anxious to hear from him. So, they will go right around the major networks if they do indeed cut away. We do not have the First Amendment. It’s under attack.”
Ms. Harrington apparently misunderstands the First Amendment, just as some people fail to realize that freedom of the press is freedom for the people who own presses. Freedom of speech only says you can’t be prevented from speaking. It doesn’t demand that anyone listen to you.
It would be interesting to know how much people in the audience for Trump’s screed were paid to be there. If they were paid, then it’s perfectly legit to make them stay for the whole thing. If not, it’s reminiscent of the old bit about laying down with dogs and getting up with fleas.
The next two years likely will be a horror show, although there are still things that could happen to take Trump out of the picture. Let’s not forget that he is a morbidly obese man in his mid 70s. It’s probably one chance in three that health problems will sideline him.
His chances are probably worse than that that legal problems won’t sideline him, and with a Democrat in the White House and the New York governor’s mansion, he shouldn’t be expecting a pardon.
Most importantly of all, though, the bloom is off the rose with a lot of people who voted for him in 2016 and 2020. One thing we seem to be hearing a great deal is people saying they love his policies but they hate the drama. And there are plenty of people — Ron DeSantis, for example — who will be happy to provide those policies without the drama.
So the horror show will begin with Trump doing his best to eviscerate his GOP opponents.
Then we’ll see if he survives to battle Biden.