Trump Lite Arrives In Podunk
– By Ed Kociela –
The Arizona landscape is wide and rambling, hardly fit for man nor beast, unless you are akin to the javelina, rattlesnakes, gila monsters, or presidential wannabes who roam the desert wasteland.
Donald Trump slithered into Florence, Arizona over the weekend, presumably to dip his big toe into the 2024 presidential race.
Except, even such Trump loyalists as FOX News decided it really wasn’t worth their time to send in the media troops to propagandize the event.
It was, in essence, Trump Lite, a replaying of his charges about a rigged election, a calling out of his Arizona political enemies who he encouraged voters to snub in the upcoming mid-terms, and his continuing cozying up to the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol a little more than a year ago.
Florence is one of those Podunk stops where B-List politicos go to try to breathe air into a dying campaign, where a washed-up two-time loser can be assured of outdrawing reptiles crawling across the desert floor, a suburb of a suburb about as hip as a Lawrence Welk record, a place you would stop for gas on your way to the big city of Phoenix, about 60 miles away.
There’s a dilapidated state prison in Florence, perhaps appropriate for some in the Trump caravan, and a smidge of local lore mostly attached to the silver mines that once operated near there.
It’s a place of prickly cacti, prickly heat, and prickly politics. In other words, a good place for the former president — perhaps the biggest celebrity to venture through the area since movie cowboy Tom Mix was killed near Florence in a car crash back in 1940 — to tease another run for the White House.
Reportedly, Trump drew a decent crowd, but let’s face it, you and I could outdraw two gila monsters skittering across the desert floor.
What the crowd got, however, was the same old same old and, even in Podunk, that gets old.
He promised the crowd a “comeback…the likes of which nobody has ever seen.”
He embraced the domestic terrorists jailed for their participation in the attack on the Capitol, calling them “political prisoners” who are being “persecuted” in a “living hell” in “filthy, dirty” jails and that “if we think they”re innocent we should help them defend themselves.”
He asked why Congress isn’t “investigating…a rigged and stolen election.”
And, of course, he sent cannonball shots across the decks of his political opponents, whether local Republicans or Democrats in general.
While the ex-president’s words might play well in the sticks, you can be sure that his whining will not go over well should he decide to try to take his show uptown before a sophisticated, intellectual crowd.
In fact, it seems as if even FOX News is growing weary of the ex-president and his lies, so much so that it did not broadcast his speech on Saturday night. Of course, even those guys tire of handing over valuable air time to some sideshow geek.
It’s pathetic and oddly sad to see somebody who once held the most important job in the world, kicked to the end of the queue like some tone deaf singer in a grimy karaoke bar.
It would be nice to place some sort of measure on it all but to be honest, voters aren’t happy with anybody right now as approval ratings for everybody from Vice President Kamala Harris to President Joe Biden and Trump are in the dumper. There is a general malaise in this nation today and with good reason. After four years of debilitating embarrassment we came out the other side with little reprieve and and contagious divisiveness that threatens the foundation of our republic. The midterms will be a good indicator of just how frazzled we really are. But, I am willing to bet, we won’t see wholesale changes in Congress this election year. In fact, I would not be surprised to see voting numbers tumble despite current efforts to make a level playing field. The fringes are too flayed and, besides, those guys would rather go to fisticuffs rather than work out a sensible resolution to any of our problems, which is why I would rather see the Senate sponsor a WWE-style loser leaves town cage match between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell than debate the filibuster rule. It would certainly be more entertaining. (Where’s Hulk Hogan when we need him, anyway?)
I’m not quite convinced yet that Trump is truly looking at another run for the White House. While the idea of coming back to rub the Democrats’ nose in it all certainly must have some appeal to the former president I don’t know that he truly wants the gig any more. In fact, I think what is really afoot here is the fact that Trump is one of those publicity whores who needs to see and hear his name trumpeted through headlines and soundbites. It is an ego thing primarily, I think. He feeds on it, lives for it, relishes the thought of so much power and profile. But I don’t think he really wants to dirty his hands with the presidency any longer. He has become a mythological character who people fear and believe has super powers like some bad guy from a Batman movie. As such, he will maintain a certain lower-grade celebrity that will allow him to gather crowds in the hinterlands as he preaches from the back of a low-boy trailer. But, deep down, he realizes he lost the popular vote in two elections so why risk a third washout?
It would do little to spruce up his legacy, which is something old guys do a lot of, particularly those who have risen to a higher profile. What kind of legacy can be embellished by losing three consecutive popular votes?
Most importantly, the more he continues to be ignored by the news networks — even his beloved propaganda arm at FOX News — the more that legacy is tarnished.
And, nobody, not even Trump, can buff that up.
Even in Podunk.
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