President Trump gave one of his rally speeches Thursday in North Carolina, which went on … and on … and on. I believe it was clocked at close to 90 minutes. The president obviously enjoys these performances, and his favorite parts are when he wings it, departing from the prepared teleprompter script.
If entertainment is the goal, Donald Trump can be really good at this. He was a celebrity long before he was a politician, and he has great comic timing and audience connection. He is, moreover, a provocateur, so he revels in the studiously unpresidential stories and R-rated insults. His core supporters eat it up. While I confess to finding it amusing occasionally (less as time has gone by), it’s become stale and, in light of the stakes, foolhardy. The president’s manner has always made a lot of Americans uncomfortable, because they rightly think the decorum and norms of the presidency are important to preserve. This goes at least some of the way toward explaining why he has never been as popular personally as some of his policies (particularly in the pre-COVID economy).
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