As his campaign speech rambled well past an hour Saturday night in Waterford Township, former President Donald Trump finally uttered the welcome words “in conclusion,” as if it were the two-minute warning at a pro football game.
But then the large, loud, orange-faced, yellow-haired demagogue suddenly veered off-script again, like a drunk driver on a cellphone transporting Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert in his passenger seat.
Trump fired his final cheap shot at the city of Detroit, about 30 miles south of the chilly airport shed in Oakland County where he spoke. He predicted Motor City election officials will try to cheat in favor of President Joe Biden and against Trump in the presidential election on Nov. 5.
Trump’s crowd was mostly white; Detroit and its election workers are mostly Black.
“We gotta watch Detroit, we gotta watch Detroit,” Trump said, his voice in a tone of exaggerated suspicion. “Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy. They had such horrible abuse. You know they had more ballots — you know this — they had more ballots than they had voters. Do you know that? Gee. And they didn’t want to, you know, go into that.”
Later, he added: “Don’t let ‘em cheat. Don’t let ‘em cheat.”
His mob-boss style of innuendo was clear. Trump was repeating the piece of his 2020 Big Lie that cheating in Detroit helped give Biden his victory over Trump in Michigan en route to Biden’s victory in both the national popular vote and the electoral college.
But like a broken clock that is right twice a day, even Trump can speak an occasional truth.
“If we win Michigan, we win the election,” Trump said Saturday, calling the Great Lakes State “the whole ball game.”
That might prove true, assuming Biden again is the Democratic candidate and Trump again represents the Republicans. It’s hard to judge enthusiasm for this one and difficult to predict.
Unlike Joe Louis against Max Schmeling, this is not a rematch the public is clamoring for. Many voters consider Biden unfit mentally and Trump unfit morally and are deeply discouraged by their choice.
In 2016, Trump won the White House over Hillary Clinton when he took Michigan by a narrow margin. Nationally, Trump won the electoral college, although she won the popular vote.
Like a broken clock that is right twice a day, even Trump can speak an occasional truth. “If we win Michigan, we win the election,” he said, calling the Great Lakes State “the whole ball game.”
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On Saturday night in Michigan, Trump patronized factory workers, attacked the UAW, and occasionally seemed to lose focus on his script. Early on, he meandered into praise for the physique of an auto worker he said he met backstage.
“He had the strongest build I’ve ever seen,” Trump gushed. “I said, ‘I’d like to have a body like that!’ Where is that guy?”
A few minutes later, while complaining about electric Army tanks, Trump spotted the man in the audience.
“There’s the guy!” said the visibly excited Trump. “Come on up here! C’mere. C’mere.”
The smiling, physically fit, middle-aged man had a light mustache that drooped down the sides of his mouth. He took the stage wearing a red Trump hat, blue jeans, a green jacket, and a white hoodie. Trump made him strip down his torso to his tight, red T-shirt that said both “auto workers” and “Trump.”
He patted the man on the shoulder.
“I like this guy,” Trump said. “I met him backstage. He’s great. He’s great … Look at this guy. He could rip you apart.”
Trump invited “this guy” (he never asked this guy’s name) to spout a few words.
“We got your back!” this guy shouted into Trump’s microphone.
After a few more words, Trump thanked him and this guy replied, “You’re welcome, brother, fight the fight.”
Trump gave the man a long hug as he left. But his infatuation lingered.
“Look at these muscles,” Trump said. “He’s got muscles all over the place.”
A few minutes later, Trump veered into another reference to his new friend, “That good-looking, strong guy with his beautiful muscles.”
The rest of the speech mixed boilerplate personal insults, the general running down of the United States of America, and contempt for its multiple forces of justice, civil and criminal, which are beginning to close in on Trump with trials in four venues.
Trump said mail-in voting is “totally corrupt”; he called Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis “fanny”; he called federal prosecutor Jack Smith “deranged” and added “he’s a crooked guy, he’s an animal”; he called “crooked” the judge who presided over his New York trial for financial fraud.
He called his only Republican opponent, Nikki Haley, “Bird Brain,” sounding much like Oscar the Grouch teasing Big Bird on Sesame Street. Trump had serious moments, too. He said “we are a nation in decline, we are a failing nation.”
“Look at our cities,” Trump said. “They’re falling apart. Look at our country. It’s falling apart. We’re like a third-world nation … We’re stupid. So stupid…” He vowed to oppose transgender rights and Black Lives Matter, along with fighting against vaccine and mask mandates.
In that Trump and the Republicans have refused to do immigration reform now so Trump can use it as a campaign issue, he warned Saturday night of “migrant crime” to be feared. Murderers, Trump said, are coming in from Congo and many other places.
“They’re coming in from prisons,” Trump said. “They’re coming in from mental institutions. They’re coming from insane asylums. They go and they beat up police officers. They stab people, hurt people, shoot people … Illegal alien criminals crawling through your windows and going through your drawers.”
Trump also told his followers that these very same immigrants will take away high-paying jobs of UAW members by working harder and for less. “You’re going to get so screwed,” he promised. Trump failed to explain how full-time criminals could work full-time at auto plants.
It didn’t matter.
“Trump-Trump-TRUMP!” his fans chanted. “Trump-Trump-TRUMP!”
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