Nobody can blame Donald Trump for a being a little reflective – given the events of the last few days. But his big speech in Milwaukee last night was, as his rather unkind critics were quick to point out, curiously ‘low-energy’. He was sombre and slow. He looked almost too sad to read out from the teleprompter. He at times seemed to struggle to hold back the tears.
Donald Trump can do funny and he can do angry. But sombre Donald Trump is a different man altogether
Normally, at rallies, Trump revs up the crowd. This time the crowd tried again and again to rev him up. They laughed at lines he said as if he were joking when he wasn’t.
‘I’m not supposed to be here tonight,’ he said, a line he has already used in interviews about the shooting last weekend. ‘Yes you are! Yes you are!’ the crowd chanted back. ‘Thank you,’ said Trump, with a little glimpse of the old Donald coming back. ‘But I’m not. And I’ll tell you. I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.‘
Trump’s grasp of theology is bizarre – if an all powerful God wanted him to survive, surely he was meant to be there?
But he does seem to have fallen in love, almost too sincerely, with all the people from that fateful rally in Pennsylvania last weekend. ‘For the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘I will be grateful for the love shown by that giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in Pennsylvania.’
He then turned to Corey Comperatore, the poor volunteer fire chief who was killed on Saturday. ‘Unbelievable person,’ Trump said, ‘everybody tells me. Unbelievable.’ He pointed at his fire helmet and jacket which had been put on a stage. Trump walked over and kissed the helmet. Then walked slowly back. It was poignant. It was also odd.
He took another moment to talk about how much money he had raised since the weekend for the Comperatore family and two other Trump supporters who were injured at the rally – $6.3 million – then he asked for a moment of silence for Corey.
‘There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others,’ he said. ‘This is the spirit that forged America in her darkest hours.’
From there, he went into his more familiar patter about the state of the country and how he will save America.
‘We will not bend,’ he said, one of his stock lines. ‘We will not back down. And I will never stop fighting for you, your family and our magnificent country.’ But he remained subdued throughout. And Trump’s tone of lament jarred somewhat with the rest of the evening, which had included a warm-up routine from the wrestler Hulk Hogan, who had torn his shirt off.
Donald Trump can do funny and he can do angry. But sombre Donald Trump is a different man altogether. The shooting really does seem to have changed him. We’ll have to wait and see for how long that remains true.
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