You had to know that our delightful respite from hearing that voice that inspires so many to anger and despair for American civilization couldn’t last forever.
It was, however, too brief a period during which our nation has been free of tweeted atrocities and bare-faced lies gurgling forth from the mouth of Donald Trump.
The disgraced former president made his public comeback today at the annual CPAC convention of amped-up right-wingers who were drooling over the prospect of their putative savior’s appearance and ready to applaud his every deplorable word.
Trump gave the audience exactly the alternative reality that they expected in his remarks, as this series of excerpts handily compiled by Vox’s inveterate reporter Aaron Rupar amply demonstrates.
Trump began with a mischaracterization of his disastrous term in office and a claim of ownership to the party he invaded just four and a half short years ago.
"We are not starting new parties … we have the Republican Party" — Trump pic.twitter.com/PkumgJ6xqF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
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Trump’s obsession with polling remains as strong as ever, as does his tendency to inflate any number that he is given.
lol Trump's material is completely unchanged. he's still banging on about "walls and wheels" pic.twitter.com/VJ86ZlIEfa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
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Why write new material, when your old routine helped you win a landslide victory in the last election (at least in your own mind)?
It appears that he was so comfortable with his standard stump speech that Trump didn’t even bother reading the text of his speech before it was placed in the teleprompter in front of him, at least in Mr. Rupar’s view.
Trump is dogwhistling to QAnon pic.twitter.com/N8NDGKbaEM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Perhaps, Trump’s catering to the QAnon crowd is due to the fact that that particular demographic seems likely to believe anything that he says as totally credible, a helpful leg up when you’re about to repeat the same lie that inspired a violent invasion of Capitol Hill.
drink! pic.twitter.com/IOJJCcMxUT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Yes, we remember when you made up the threat of caravans to try to convince American’s were in grave danger unless they gave you the money to build your folly of a wall, Donald, after Mexico predictably refused to fund it.
Mexico’s response was not surprising given the overall lack of respect that Trump has shown to any country other than America.
Trump just short-circuited pic.twitter.com/0tRD6PpuHw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Trump’s lack of practice at public speaking for the past month and a half is really showing here, but no amount of rehearsal could turn his nonsense into a coherent and truthful statement.
Trump, without a shred of irony, claims Biden is the most corrupt president in history (Trump owned and profited from a private business while in office, and benefitted from lavish Secret Service expenses at his properties) pic.twitter.com/rm0UNxME4M
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
It must be easy to write speeches for Trump when you aren’t constrained by pesky things like facts.
Trump on the Paris Climate Accord: "We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, and everything else that we've ever had. So I don't know why we have to [rejoin]" (this is a lie, first of all, and second, clean air and water are different issues than climate change) pic.twitter.com/EvM4gBEca9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Lies about the election? Check. Lies about the environment? Check.
Lies about clean energy generation? Check.
we've reached the transphobia portion of Trump's CPAC speech pic.twitter.com/MJMzIqTgwg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Transphobia is always a sure winner for garnering applause with this crowd of sexually-threatened right-wing extremists.
The transphobia part of Trump's CPAC speech gets a big standing ovation. Republicans remain big on bigotry pic.twitter.com/h1NuKPq5gI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
With this crowd, Trump received little pushback to the continued promotion of his “big lie” that he and not Joe Biden actually won the election, so why not augment that lie by taking credit for the performance of America’s economy since Biden kicked him out of the White House.
#ThanksBiden pic.twitter.com/YDfGNQxLuI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
All the love from the crowd surely gave Trump’s narcissistic ego the biggest massage that it’s gotten since the blood lust gathering before the Capitol invasion on January 6th.
"we reject cancel culture" — drink! pic.twitter.com/rbrDaJulxb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Still, no amount of adulation could smother the deep resentment of Trump’s election loss and his inability to explain it in any other terms other than “I won. The election was stolen.”
"This election was rigged," Trump lies, prompting CPAC attendees to chant, 'you won! you won!"
Trump then attacks the Supreme Court for not overthrowing the election result for him
"The didn't have the guts or the courage to make the right decision," Trump says pic.twitter.com/HYo4IiaWFI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
By now, you’re probably remembering how intolerable it was to hear this man mouthing off with this claptrap every single day and amplified by shameless press secretaries with no problem swearing to the truth of his lies. Getting all the bottled-up anger at once that he’s been unable to express publically for weeks on end only makes the concentrated vitriol he’s now spouting all the more difficult to take.
Trump claims "it is undeniable" that election rules were "illegally changed" — the only problem being that the courts in fact denied it pic.twitter.com/UqlqHgqGIc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Trump knows that he won’t get any fact checks from the people in this crowd who aren’t in fact much different from the crowd he addressed on January 6th when it comes to believing his delusions.
"fragrantly — flagrantly" pic.twitter.com/q2sg1l84IC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Of course, the vindictive former leader wouldn’t miss an opportunity to slam Republicans whom he deemed insufficiently loyal to his cause.
who "stated" this? David Dennison? pic.twitter.com/KuKuPDnlh2
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
David Dennison is, of course, one of the aliases Trump purportedly used to phone journalists to leak flattering information about himself in his NYC real estate days.
poor guy is still in the denial stage of grief pic.twitter.com/qCrrZ5A9jh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
In the end, Trump chickened out of announcing another run for president in 2024, something that until today most people at the conference were expecting him to do.
Trump ditched the traditional end of his rally speech and is no longer doing the "we will make America great again" bit. His CPAC address is finally over after about 90 minutes. pic.twitter.com/UVVwHZLtsL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2021
Trump’s not-so-triumphant return was as empty and meaningless as all his previous speeches, with the only thing differentiating it from his speeches when he was still president being the fact that he wouldn’t be boarding Air Force 1 and returning to the White House once it ended.
Let’s hope that Trump’s future public appearances are infrequent and ignored by mainstream media.
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Here is a man who lives and breathes the attention he attracts. The only way to prevent him from rising from the metaphorical dead is to starve him of the media focus that enables him.
Trump is a monster and we must use horror film tactics to defeat him.
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Original reporting by Aaron Rupar at Vox.
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