Trump’s biggest applause lines
Donald Trump opened a recent speech in South Carolina with a cheeky question for the crowd: “Would anybody like to give up their space?” NOOOO! they roared. The lady sitting next to me yelled, “They should have gotten here earlier!” She was referring to the rallygoers who showed up too late to get a seat in the packed Winthrop University sports arena in Rock Hill, S.C., on the eve of the state’s Republican primary. The main event drew about 6,000 supporters, many of whom stood in line for hours before being admitted.
People came from far and wide and happily chatted, making new friends as Trump merch vendors paced the line that wrapped around the arena and into the parking lot. Top sellers included a bedazzled TRUMP baseball hat and T-shirts with lewd digs at President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. If you didn’t like the selection, down the road in McBee you could have found the Trump Store (a sign outside restricts its clientele to “Patriots Only”), offering a wide selection of things like Trump-branded pocket knives and a cutout of former first lady Melania Trump.
Nearly 10 minutes after Trump asked that opening question, he invited the crowd to sit (yes, they had been standing the entire time). “We’ll be here for a while . . . . Sit down.” The crowd erupted in laughter. “Don’t worry, you’ll be standing up soon.”
To understand the ongoing devotion of Trump’s followers, it helps to attend his rallies, a dizzying political hybrid of a Nascar race and megachurch revival.
To Trump haters, the rallies have always been cultish and bizarre. To his fans, they are lovefests, only growing in fervor as Trump continues to face lawfare from the “Deep State.”
Here are some of the lines that, as Trump predicted, got supporters back on their feet — and what they may tell us about issues that could make the difference in the 2024 race.
Still that guy from TV
“We want to send the signal to the real, the real hardline people, the people that are destroying our country, Joe Biden, we’re going to send them a signal that we’re coming . . . . Tomorrow we’re going to win this state and then we’re going to tell Crooked Joe Biden, YOU’RE FIRED!” (To which the crowd responded with chants of “USA! USA! USA!”)
Context: It’s easy to forget that Trump’s fame took off when he was host of the NBC show “The Apprentice,” where his signature line was “You’re fired.” Though he may have lost some fans from those days, many of his current supporters remain fond of that legacy.
One, Jeff Tomberlin, 44, told me that he has looked up to Donald Trump for decades. “One year he was the richest man in the world, one year he was on a TV show,” Tomberlin said while waiting in line. “He lived the American dream.”
“Remember I came out and I said, ‘The border they’re having problems. They’ve got rapists, they’ve got thugs’ . . . and everybody said ‘What horrible things!’ We were right about that one too. . . . What we have now is a total disaster.”
Context: Practically every person I spoke with at the rally brought up the border, and that’s not a coincidence. More Americans are naming immigration as their top issue. Later in the speech, Trump said: “On day one I will seal the border, stop the invasion, and send Joe Biden’s illegal aliens back home.” The crowd went wild. But it’s worth noting that border crossings were relatively high during Trump’s term as well — though nothing compared with Biden’s numbers.
“Under the Trump administration, you were better off, your family was better off, your neighbors were better off, your communities were better off, and our country was far, far, far better off, that’s for sure. America was stronger and tougher and richer and safer and more confident,” he said. But this is what got the biggest applause: “Three years ago under my leadership we had energy independence and we were soon going to have energy dominance all over the world . . . . We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country.” And then the kicker: “I had gas prices at $1.87 a gallon — wouldn’t that be nice?”
Context: His supporters look back to his term and remember a time of low inflation, low gas prices, low interest rates, and relatively high employment. “We were traveling more, we had gas at record lows, we had extra money in my pocket,” said Angie Ayers, a 53-year-old medical administrator. Indeed, gas was cheaper during Trump’s term, peaking at about $2.39 a gallon in late 2020. Under Biden, it spiked to a record-high national average of over $5 per gallon, though the figure is about $3.37 per gallon now. Trump voters, many of whom live in rural areas and provide their own transportation, won’t soon forget their pain at the pump. To be sure, there is only so much an American president can do about gas prices or even the overall economy. And Trump conveniently forgot to mention that the final months of his term were marked by lockdowns and the general chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The culture wars live on
Through raucous applause, Trump promised to cut federal funding for “any school pushing critical race theory.” He also asserted: “I will not send one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.” And “Something I find hard to believe I even had to say: I will keep men out of women’s locker rooms.”
Context: He doesn’t exactly define what he means by “critical race theory.” And absent from his speech was any mention of one of his greatest triumphs, and arguably one of the greatest feats of modern medicine, Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated the rollout of the mRNA vaccines to combat COVID-19.
World peace, courtesy of Donald Trump
Trump got props for getting rid of the “greatest terrorists in the world,” referring to Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of ISIS. “Hillary Clinton used to say in the debates, ‘Look at him, that personality . . . He’s gonna get us into a war.’ But my personality kept us out of wars.”
How did he keep the other terrorists, like the
Taliban, under control? “I had a talk,” he said, referring to his infamous 2020 call with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. “I spoke to him: ‘Abdul, Abdul, so nice to talk to you. Don’t kill any more of our people. If you do you will be met with force the likes of which you’ve never heard of or seen.’ . . . From that point forward, we didn’t have one soldier, person, shot at or killed for 18 months.” (That’s not quite true. While it’s unclear what period Trump is talking about, there were US casualties in Afghanistan every year from 2015 until 2021.) “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after . . . I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled.”
Context: Trump’s go-to explanation for international affairs is to assert that he can settle just about any conflict through sheer charisma or force of personality, backed up by some saber-rattling. But he has yet to produce detailed explanations of how he would settle the war in Ukraine or Israel’s invasion of Gaza, denuclearize North Korea or Iran, or address China’s growing power (beyond a threatening phone call, that is).
Who’s the real threat to democracy?
According to Trump, it’s Biden. “He is the worst and most incompetent and most corrupt president in history. The only one that loves him is Jimmy Carter . . . . Jimmy Carter had a brilliant administration compared to Biden . . . . He’s the corrupt president, the most incompetent president ever. I would never have said that — even though it’s true — but out of respect for the office I would never talk that way . . . . He is a threat to democracy, not us.”
Context: Trump seems to be arguing that his threats to undermine the democratic process, to be a “dictator for one day,” are simply a response to Biden’s corrupt government, whose corruption is evidenced by the lengthy list of legal challenges against him under a Democrat-controlled Department of Justice and from blue states. Conveniently omitted was any mention of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, or Trump’s request that Mike Pence use his power as vice president to overturn the election results by rejecting the Electoral College votes.
Is Joe Crooked or just Sleepy?
Democrats “lie, lie lie. And they say it like ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’ Took me two and a half years to get that off my back! You know, that was, that was a real crooked deal. They use that as an excuse. Why? Beautiful Hillary.”
Wait, she’s no longer “Crooked Hillary”?! Time heals all wounds, I guess. Trump’s got new wounds to inflict: “I have Sleepy Joe Biden and I have Crooked Joe Biden — I think Crooked is more accurate.”
Like him or hate him, the guy can make people laugh. The Crooked Joe line is a good example. It succeeded in getting middle-aged women and frat boys to giggle in unison. And while much of Trump’s political success comes from his ability to energize and enrage his base, the fervor of his supporters’ devotion comes down to one thing: his ability to entertain.