Trump Pivots to Slam Poetry

Donald Trump loves a rally, and he loves to use those rallies to drone on and on about windmills and how cool Hannibal Lecter is, often for well over two hours. At the presidential debate in September, Kamala Harris clearly struck a nerve when she said Trump’s own supporters are now increasingly leaving his rallies early due to his rambling nonsense. One month later, Trump’s taken that criticism and… done approximately nothing with it!

As of this week, Trump is the butt of a barrage of jokes mocking his particularly bizarre, incoherent remarks at a couple of recent speaking events. And I am laughing along, sure, but to be honest, as someone who frequently attends my friends’ poetry and flash fiction readings across Brooklyn, I’m also listening and learning…

The former president rose to power on a campaign of racism and anti-intellectualism. He’s still racist, obviously, but lately, he appears to be getting a lot more introspective about words and their poetic meaning. For example: What is the wind, really? In elementary school, we’re told that wind is what occurs when air moves from a high-pressure system to a low-pressure system. But when you step outside and are hit with an arctic blast that makes you rethink not just whether you’re wearing enough layers, but your whole outlook on life, are you really thinking about pressure systems???

Or, as Trump so thoughtfully put it at a Wednesday night rally: “The wind, the wind. It sounds so wonderful. The wind. The wind. The wind is bullshit. I’ll tell you. It’s horrible,” he said, to scattered cheers as an audience of MAGA-hat wearing, rural Pennsylvanians suddenly found themselves unwittingly transported to a Dimes Square poetry reading.

Trump: The wind, the wind… The wind, the wind, the wind is, the wind is bullshit. I’ll tell you, it’s horrible. The windmills aren’t wind pic.twitter.com/fGpRAZ8kUl

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 9, 2024

Trump continued to ponder words and their eternal mysticism during a Thursday night speech about the economy in Michigan, which lasted over two hours. “The word ‘grocery.’ It’s sort of a simple word. But it sort of means like, everything you eat,” he explained. “The stomach is speaking. It always does.”

It always does. Famously, the body keeps the score—and the stomach speaks. It always does.

and I think

that’s beautiful.

Trump: “I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery. You know, it’s sorta simple word, but it sorta means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, uh, I have more complaints about that. Bacon and things going up.” pic.twitter.com/6b8tbjPxJa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 10, 2024

I say this with all love for Rupi Kaur, whose poems I sincerely enjoy, but Trump seems to be studying her work—and it sounds like he’s a quick learner.

In the same Detroit Economic Club speech, Trump seemed to recall Harris’ observation about his crowds’ dwindling patience with the duration and incoherence of his speeches. “I haven’t noticed anybody leaving,” he said, and he impressed on us all that he is, in fact, watching and making certain of this. “There was one gentleman over there but he came back. He went to the bathroom … No, they don’t flee. Nobody is fleeing. Nobody’s leaving.”

Maybe audience members are leaving, maybe they’re not. (They definitely are.) Famously, great art is seldom appreciated in its time. That, or Trump is an increasingly senile, bumbling, 78-year-old oaf. (It’s definitely the latter.)