Trump’s luck runs out with acceptance speech: Post-assassination in new context

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is introduced during the final night of the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Filipino Americans  can stop praying for Donald Trump.

Since at least a third of all Asian American voters said they would vote for Trump, according to a recent Asian American national study, I’m sure there were at least a few Filipino Asian American Catholics saying an extra rosary since last Saturday.

Well, you can go back to praying for your lolo and lolas. Trump’s back to normal. Born again? It’s the same old Don the Con.

On the last day of the Republican National Convention, the former president accepted the nomination of his party and then rambled on for over 90 minutes in what is being called the “longest speech for a nomination acceptance by a major party figure in modern American history.”

That is not bragworthy.

The 90-minute length enabled Trump to publicly spew his subconscious political thoughts in real time. It was like his greatest hits.

His “China Virus” call back was like a shout out to the handful of AAPI watching live or in Milwaukee about how Trump’s use of the term resulted in the vicious unrelenting transgressions that inspired #StopAAPIHate.

Worse than Biden? 

The speech allowed Trump to ramble incoherently and lie about real facts, as he did in that infamous June 27 debate. He took swipes at Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi by name, and fumbled words a number of times.

For example, Trump talked about building an Iron Dome like Israel’s over America. Hmm, like a wall in the sky, but for all the bombs we’re getting?  Or was that to keep “illegal aliens” from airlifting to America?

“It’s like Reagan’s Starship, Spaceship,” Trump said though he meant Reagan’s “Star Wars” idea.

But that’s the real Trump, much older and forgetful with a poor memory at age 78 than anyone realizes. Minor? It’s the same detailed scrutiny now being given to Biden whom some Democrats are trying to push out. Maybe the public will cut the current president some slack after Trump’s convention finale that essentially showed his instability that signaled the end of his Post-Assassination World Sympathy Tour.”

And it was all set up for Trump on a tee to show people who genuinely want to end the kind of divisive politics that lead to acts of violence. Immediately after the assassination attempt Saturday, Trump was one of those who called for sense of American unity.

Was he coming to his senses? Did a bullet convince him of the error of his ways during his 2016-2020 administration?

Any change could have swayed some independent voters who are tired of the coarse, vulgar, racist tone of our current politics in America so lacking in civility. And most all of it emerging since Trump’s arrival into politics.

Saturday’s bullet made us see him as a different person. Liberals joined in to pray for the man’s life.

Trump’s deathbed conversion 

For the first few minutes of his speech Trump, speaking for the first time publicly about the shooting, reflected on the incident.

“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of the Almighty God,” Trump told the crowd. “The crowd thought I was dead. And there was this great sorrow…There was blood pouring everywhere and yet in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side.”

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he stands on stage with family members during the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

That was the tone for about 10-15 minutes. It was sober and quiet. A mention of God was like Trump’s deathbed conversion.

The tone turned a bit when Trump began to honor the local Pennsylvania fire chief, Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed at the rally on Saturday when he threw his body over his family to protect them.

Trump stood by a uniform of the firefighter and even kissed the helmet.

It felt staged, manipulative, and a little jarring.

Didn’t we just see a half hour ago how Trump imported into American politics the white rap of Kid Rock? Topped off with no less than wrestler Hulk Hogan? This is a different kind of celebrity than the Dem’s George Clooney. A wrestler on the final day of a serious political convention in the group leading up to the nominee sounds like…a satire.

Or a party. And maybe it would have been fine if it stayed with that victory party air. But using the fire chief’s uniform as a prop changed the convention vibe from fun to funereal.

Honoring Comperatore in a separate section all its own would have been better. But Trump, of course, wanted the emotion of Saturday all for himself, and it backfired.

Luck runs out on the faux unifier 

Trump should have carried on with a few more choice, pre-written soundbites like the ones he read off the prompter at the very beginning of his remarks.

Anticipating victory in November, Trump said, “Together we will launch a new era of safety, prosperity, and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed.”

Ah unity!

“The discord and division in our society must be healed and must heal quickly. As Americans we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together, or we fall apart. We’re all Americans, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning half of America,” said Trump, which was as solid an image of a changed, unifying Trump that we were going to get.

There was no mention of his divisive anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-Roe v. Wade stance. Not even when he switched to rally mode for the balance of the 90-minute speech.

That’s when we got the same old Trump political stream of consciousness. Illegal aliens are bad. Inflation bad. Biden bad and weak.

He threw in high praise for Aileen Cannon, the federal district judge who threw out the documents-in-the-Mar-a-Lago-bathroom case, the one with AAPI Walt Nauta as co-defendant, the one with all the damning evidence. Cannon dismissed the case saying appointing a  special prosecutor was unconstitutional. Would you expect more from a judge who is a Trump appointee?

And then there were the lies. Inflation at record highs? No more. It’s around 3 percent now. CNN pointed to more than 20 lies in the rally speech Trump would have given on Saturday had there not been that bullet.

And while he lied at the convention, the bullet’s impact was always present in that white bandage over the right ear, a constant reminder of danger averted.

Now it’s just used for affect and exploitation.

Trump, who again talked of weaponization of government  in the four cases that indicted him, including the 34 felony convictions in New York, wore that ear bandage as if it were his white badge of victimhood.

It was his undoing. After a string of luck the last few weeks on Day Four of the RNC, with his acceptance speech, the luck ran out.

One bad speech? One bad night?

More than that. It put the assassination attempt into context.

Think of all those images of Trump and the flag, standing up and fist pumping after being shot at. It didn’t give us a changed man. It’s just the same Trump, bloodied, bandaged and vengeful – a stark reminder of his chaotic first administration, and what a second one would do to America.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He writes for Inquirer.net’s US Channel. See him on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. Contact: www.amok.com