Whatever comes next, Tuesday night will be remembered, if it’s remembered at all, as the night that Donald J. Trump exited prime time.
Say what you will about the man — love him or loathe him; enjoy him or not — Trump’s 2016 campaign was, at the very least, interesting.
Sure, sometimes it was “interesting” in the way that watching a high-wire act is interesting and sometimes it was interesting like a train wreck is interesting. But Donald Trump really did run for president in 2015–2016 in a way no one else ever has or ever could. Trump tried things and got away with things and pulled stunts that no “normal” politician could have ever dreamed up. And then, when he became president of the United States, that sense of all-engrossing interest was put into overdrive because he held real power. Watching the real-estate-and-casino-mogul-turned-reality-TV-host sit in the Oval Office and run the executive branch of the federal government was pure chaos. It was unscripted. It was surreal. It was a Stanley Kubrick film come to life.
Tuesday night’s presidential-campaign-announcement speech was anything but. Instead of high drama, it was Rocky V. It was the political equivalent of a late-night rerun of an episode of CSI: Miami. Instead of the supernova of Madonna’s 1984 World Tour, it was the sad, pathetic cry-f0r-attention of the onetime Queen of Pop’s NSFW Instagram account in 2022. Trump looked tired, subdued, and low energy.
The Mar-a-Lago crowd looked listless and bored, too. They shuffled their feet and milled about. They slipped off to get a drink or use the head mid-speech.
During the long middle third of Trump’s oration, the crowd’s energy sagged, only reviving, a bit, as individuals realized that the speech must — surely must! — be drawing to a close.
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As it dragged on and on, Fox News broke in and turned to commentary, relegating Trump to the B-roll — a damning indictment and flashing neon sign that a couple of C-List talking heads were more interesting and lively than the former president himself.
Trump is old. His jokes are dull. His act is tired. There’s no excitement or sense of the mischievous unknown. There’s not even much of a patina of malice or danger. The visuals and the “optics” — that loathsome term — of it all were tired too.
Sure, it’s possible that Trump may yet win the Republican nomination against a crowded primary field. It’s possible that Trump’s not yet fully done. But whatever comes next, Tuesday, November 15, 2022, will be remembered, if it’s remembered at all, as the night that Donald J. Trump exited prime time. He’s stuck in reruns now. America’s been there, done that.
The Trump Show has become as boring as it gets.