Former president Donald J. Trump is a danger to democracy and to the world, but let’s not forget that he is also deeply strange. Seriously, he’s out there saying some of the most unhinged, incendiary, and bizarre nonsense on almost a daily basis.
The fire hose of insanity is so constant, it can be easy to tune him out or become numb to it. But at times, it breaks through and I’m blown away all over again that there are people who want to give this guy any kind of power. Monday was one of those days, and so here is a sampling of some of the statements that made people go, “He said what?!” again and again, every time a video or quote showed up on their social media feeds. In other words, just a typical day of Trump on the campaign trail.
“I was never indicted.”
We all know that Trump’s main hobby is denying reality, so it was shocking but not entirely surprising to hear these words come out of his mouth while speaking to a group after officially filing his candidacy paperwork in New Hampshire. In response to a reporter who asked him about Sidney Powell’s guilty plea, Trump falsely accused President Joe Biden of cheating on elections and also of personally indicting and impeaching him (while a private citizen?). And then he continued, “This is all Biden’s stuff, all these indictments that you see. I was never indicted. Practically never heard the word. It wasn’t a word that registered.”
Maybe he meant he was never indicted before he was indicted, but that’s also a meaningless, ridiculous thing to say. It gets especially absurd after the third or fourth indictment, don’t you think? He’s practically a veteran of being indicted by now.
And of course, there’s no evidence that Biden had any personal involvement in the investigations, two of which aren’t even federal.
“I’d hit him right in that fake nose.”
In one of his more disturbing tirades, Trump fantasized in detail about physically assaulting Biden. “I’d hit him right in that fake nose,” he said. “There’d be plastic lying all over the floor.”
Trump made the comment after referencing something Biden said in 2016 while forcefully criticizing Trump for bragging about his ability as a celebrity to commit sexual assault with impunity. “The press always asks me, don’t I wish I were debating him,” Biden said. “No, I wish we were in high school. I could take him behind the gym.”
Did it take seven years for Trump to come up with that comeback? At any rate, while there’s room for reasonable people to take issue with Biden’s words, Trump is the one with a history of inciting actual violence. Some of his supporters laugh, but some of them take his words to heart.
The confusing reference to plastic may or may not have something to do with a QAnon conspiracy theory that a body double in a mask is impersonating Biden. Which is apparently a thing.
“You know how to spell ‘us,’ right?”
On a lighter note, Trump went on for some time about his recent realization that the word “us” is spelled “us.” You know, like, “U.S.” Get it?
Dude, seriously?
Trump wants to make sure we give him credit for noticing this. It was apparently the first time he’s ever seen the word in writing. Well, good for him, I guess.
To be clear, he didn’t seem to be making any kind of point about unity or togetherness, it was just a prolonged musing about his impressive observation skills, or maybe just his spelling ability.
“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela.”
Trump took a brief break from referring to himself as the victim of a witch hunt to compare himself to Nelson Mandela. Yes, that Nelson Mandela—the first Black president of South Africa and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who went to prison for 27 years for his anti-apartheid activism.
To put it mildly, Trump is not at all like Mandela. If he’s saying he’s willing to go to prison, though, then hey, we’ll take him up on that!
“Viktor Orbán … the leader of Turkey.”
At one point, Trump incorrectly referred to Viktor Orbán as the leader of Turkey, when in fact, Orbán is the longtime prime minister of Hungary. Admittedly, I couldn’t have named the leaders of Turkey or Hungary either, but I’m also not running for president, a job in which you’d think it’d be useful to have some level of knowledge of world affairs.
You can also be pretty sure that if Biden made a similar mistake, it would be taken as a sign that his mental acuity was deteriorating, triggering another round of tiresome stories about his age. There seems to be no expectation that Trump, who is only three years younger, has any mental acuity to start with, and so slips like this are barely noted.
There’s more, like his promise to ban Muslims, or him telling his supporters that they don’t have to vote (I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re not going to respect results), but I can’t take it anymore. Do we really have to endure at least another year of this until we can vote him into irrelevance again?
(featured image: Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Published: Oct 24, 2023 04:18 pm