It is very difficult to assess what to make of Trump’s return speech at CPAC. On the one hand, it was nothing more than a delusional rehash of his greatest hits, a campaign speech from the last campaign as the opening of his next. He talked about all he had done, including all the winning, which was head-spinning and seemed almost pitiful.

On the other hand, he made it clear that the MAGAs believe that they have the right to rule and that without them, the world is falling apart, and he said this despite the irrefutable fact that with respect to COVID and the economy, the country seems to be doing well under Biden. He talked about how they would return to overwhelming victories in the next elections, while at the same time implying that they would take it by force if necessary.

The editors of USA Today encapsulate the dual-nature of the speech in a clear new op-ed. First, the case that Trump appeared washed-up, with nothing to offer.

Trump’s CPAC comeback speech revealed a sad little man, angry at local courts and politicians and disappointed in the federal judges he seated, but who “didn’t have the guts or the courage” to bow to him. Trump tried to carry on as if he hadn’t been impeached after the Capitol was ransacked by a mob, but even the lies seemed faintly ridiculous. “We will win. We’ve been doing a lot of winning,” was the wacko fib he launched his speech with, as if he hadn’t cost Republicans control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. Trump Republicans know that truth.

It is undeniable. At various points, Trump took credit for saving hundreds of millions from COVID death, that it would have been five years before the United States would have had a vaccine (the U.K. beat us by two weeks), and that without Trump the GOP would have lost 10-15 senate seats instead of losing the sentence.

Trump came out to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s totemic Republican song about being “proud to be an American,” and then his whole speech was an attack on America, laced with ad hominem attacks on his enemies, from Joe Biden (cruel, anti-science and not grateful enough to Trump for his COVID shot) to Liz Cheney (“warmonger”), including a callout of every member of Congress who voted to impeach or convict him. That is frightening…

…He is the threat. He and those who follow him and believe him when he calls the Republican Party “the party of love.” I truly hope you are right that he is fading.  Listening to him echo his Jan. 6 speech, I was haunted by the prospect of more violence, more killing, from those who aren’t satisfied by a conference at an Orlando Hyatt or watching it on TV. 

This is the flip side. There was a desperation, a realization that they do not have a voting majority anymore and it make take anti-democratic voting restrictions to even make it close, which would take us close enough to a lawless empire in decline, and that doesn’t take into consideration the possibility of violence to make up for power in the voting box.

Remember what Junior said, “My father showed us we didn’t have to lose gracefully,” and that those Republicans that voted to convict Trump were “self-loathing.”

There was a lot to fear in Trump’s speech.

So, parody and the last putterings of a barely coherent man on the decline, or a dangerously cornered snake that has nothing left to do but strike? It is probably a little bit of both. Cold comfort. But it means that the response is the same. That the Biden administration do the best it possibly can for the country and prove to the nation that competency really does matter and keep a very close eye upon these people.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak