{"id":431577,"date":"2026-09-10T09:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431577\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T09:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:36:09","slug":"as-the-midterms-loom-trump-returns-to-his-happy-place-on-stage-in-the-theatre-of-the-absurd-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431577\/","title":{"rendered":"As the midterms loom, Trump returns to his happy place: on stage in the theatre of the absurd | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kim Il-sung of North Korea reportedly sought transfusions of blood from young men; Mao Zedong of China believed sex with young women could prolong his life; Muammar Gaddafi underwent fat injections and hair transplantation to make himself look younger. But for Donald Trump<\/a>, the secret of eternal youth lies in nights like this.<\/p>\n

The occasion of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas was enough to get the 80-year-old US president\u2019s juices flowing. An arena with thousands of fanatical supporters indulging his lies, laughing at his jokes and burnishing his fantasies of greatness is Trump\u2019s happy place.<\/p>\n

It certainly beats stuffy Washington. \u201cState of the Union, you have to be very staid,\u201d he said, feigning stiffness and a dreary voice: \u201cLadies and gentlemen, it\u2019s an honour to be your president.\u201d The crowd laughed. Trump continued: \u201cYou do that for about an hour and then everybody\u2019s falling asleep. This is a much harder routine, let me tell you. We\u2019re also out here to have a little bit of fun.\u201d The crowd roared.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s second term has been a quest in self-mythology. It is there in the dramatic foreign policy aimed at reshaping the world. It is there in the monuments and renovations in the capital, Washington DC. It is there in the barrage of social media posts and AI slop<\/a> in which Trump appears as a young and virile all-conquering hero.<\/p>\n

It was also there on Wednesday night as Trump milked the adulation of his fanbase, the Make America Great Again diehards who, in some cases, have followed him for more than a decade. He was visibly gratified to see the \u201cfront row Joes\u201d from his rallies, including Blake Marnell, who wears a brick-patterned suit resembling his brick wall.<\/p>\n

Blake Marnell, wearing a suit jacket with bricks representing a border wall, listens to Donald Trump in Dallas. Photograph: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The president spoke for an hour and 44 minutes, surpassing his own record length convention speech set in Milwaukee two years ago. He never stopped to sip water, though the adrenaline shot of this crowd, as devoted as his aide Natalie Harp<\/a>, likely could have kept him going much longer.<\/p>\n

Anyone who suspected that this unconventional convention would be a \u201cTrump-a-palooza\u201d had the view reinforced when Lee Greenwood sang (somewhat shakily) \u201cGod Bless the USA\u201d, the familiar intro to Trump campaign rallies.<\/p>\n

A giant video screen with the US flag slowly rose to reveal dozens of mainly female Trump fans, waving little flags and smiling exuberantly. Trump, wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and blue tie, walked slowly across the shiny black stage, trimmed with gold. Chants of \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d erupted as the song finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to the first ever midterm convention of any party,\u201d Trump said, conveniently ignoring three that the Democrats held in the 1970s and 1980s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He soon told another lie. \u201cNot only is this packed, but you have an equal number of people standing outside. If anybody would like to give up their seat!\u201d In fact there were dozens of empty seats in the stadium, with the \u201cnosebleeds\u201d in the upper tier mostly unfilled.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump on stage at the Republican National midterm convention. Photograph: Callaghan O\u2019Hare\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Making the dubious boast that no one had left the arena after 80 minutes, the president said: \u201cIt\u2019s a great tribute to Trump \u2026 Everybody loves me and I love everybody!\u201d<\/p>\n

But the most grievous lie came when he falsely claimed to have won three presidential elections, and declared, also falsely, that \u201cpeople on the other side are actually admitting it\u201d. The crowd cheered and shouted: \u201cFour more years!\u201d<\/p>\n

This was political theatre of the absurd with many bizarre Trumpian riffs, ranging from bad sporting trades involving the Dallas Mavericks and Babe Ruth to how Trump had to sacrifice hygiene for his political career so he could shake hands (\u201cI\u2019m a very clean person\u201d).<\/p>\n

In trying to champion Texas attorney general Ken Paxton for the US Senate, he said: \u201cHe may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly and he may not be the best looking guy I\u2019ve ever seen but you know what he is? He\u2019s the greatest attorney general in America and he deserves to be your next senator. I\u2019m sorry, Ken. Where the hell is he? He\u2019ll never speak to me again but that\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were language games. He spoke as if his big idea of changing \u201cDemocrats\u201d to \u201cDumocrats\u201d was a piece of marketing genius or political artistry worthy of Lee Atwater. (\u201cNobody knows that dumb has a B at the end of it \u2013 most people think it\u2019s \u2018D-U-M\u2019\u201d.)<\/p>\n

Most reasonable people would look at him and think this poor elderly person is in need of an intervention. But this audience, of course, lapped it up and encouraged him.<\/p>\n

A couple watches Trump speak on a screen at the convention centre. Photograph: Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

So he revelled in his name changes. He mentioned the \u201cGulf of America\u201d and earned cheers and chants of \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d He said, \u201cLake Ontario, you know we\u2019re going to call that Lake America\u201d \u2013 more cheers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did come up with one the other day which we think is appropriate. You have a neighbouring state, New Mexico. We think it should be called \u2018New America.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning to the Iran war and strait of Hormuz, he said: \u201cLadies and gentlemen, I\u2019ll have an announcement, we\u2019ll call it the \u2018Trump Strait\u2019 and I\u2019m sure the Iranian leadership will be thrilled with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of Iran, the war would be seen as a liability by any normal president in an election year and it is a subject many Republicans<\/a> would rather avoid. But Trump, true to form, bulldozed straight ahead.<\/p>\n

He also advised Iran \u201cnot to get cute\u201d and asked the crowd: \u201cDoes anybody here think that Iran should have a nuclear weapon?\u201d There was a huge shout of, \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump even speculated what would have happened if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon and subjugated the US. \u201cIf they had a nuclear weapon, I\u2019d be calling the Supreme Leader and I\u2019d be saying, \u2018Mr Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?\u2019 \u2013 as opposed to bombing the crap out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attendees cheer as Trump speaks in Dallas. Photograph: Jeff Mcwhorter\/EPA<\/p>\n

Somewhere in all this mess, Trump talked about the midterms. He asked voters to \u201cpretend\u201d that he is on the ballot and promised $5,000 to every adult US citizen<\/a> if Republicans retain control of both the House and Senate. It was the old Trumpian trick: flaunt your bribery in public so blatantly that enough people assume it can\u2019t be corrupt.<\/p>\n

He railed against Democratic \u201ccommunists\u201d and declared: \u201cThey have more bullshit than any human beings on the planet.\u201d His supporters went wild. Such a witty putdown, sir!<\/p>\n

Trump castigated James Talarico, the Democrats\u2019 candidate for the Senate in Texas, as \u201cTalafreako\u201d and claimed: \u201cHe ran a campaign to \u2018beat meat.\u2019 He called it \u2018beat meat.\u2019 I don\u2019t know what the hell he meant by that \u2026 he wants to \u2018beat meat?\u201d \u2026 I\u2019m getting myself in trouble. He was recently seen having a barbecue and eating a lot of meat.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this and so much more. It went on and on, looping back on itself, zigzagging across the map, bamboozling any outside observer but somehow here, in the arena of Maga, making a warped kind of sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the weave,\u201d Trump mused, gesticulating wildly. \u201cYou know what the weave is? You talk about something, then you bring in a ballroom, or you bring in an aeroplane, or you bring in Air Force One \u2013 but you notice I always get right back to the same topic. Some day there\u2019ll be a time when I do the weave, weave, weave; some day there\u2019ll be a time when I don\u2019t get back to the original subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing his finger in the air, Trump said: \u201cAnd then you can say: he\u2019s had it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim Il-sung of North Korea reportedly sought transfusions of blood from young men; Mao Zedong of China believed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-431577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}