Every now and then Donald Trump lets slip the truth. There was that time he accidentally admitted he lost in 2020. And on Saturday, during a speech at the North Carolina Republican party convention in Greensboro — his second address of the day —he all but admitted he’ll just tell his base whatever reprehensible things they want to hear, just to rile them up and make them more exploitable.
Amidst the usual 2020 voter fraud nonsense and digs at Ron DeSantis — plus a detour about a “big fat dump” at 3:02am on election night three years back — Trump pivoted to the latest group Republicans hate: He said it he was re-elected he would go after “transgender insanity.” He also said he’d target “inappropriate racially, political, and sexual content” being taught to children.
The crowd went wild — so wild that Trump broke character and remarked about how strange it is that his fanbase today has found a new group of people to be bigoted towards.
Trump notes his crowd is more enthused about bigotry than they are for tax cuts: "It's amazing how strongly people feel about that. I talk about cutting taxes, people go like that, I talk about transgender everybody goes crazy. Five years ago you didn't know what the hell it was" pic.twitter.com/n1xoeCIL5C
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 11, 2023
“It’s amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see, I’m talking about cutting taxes, people go like that,” Trump told the crowd, referring to the muted response that issue receives these days. “I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought? Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was.”
To his credit (sort of), Trump has slammed the anti-woke ramblings of some of his rivals, such as DeSantis. “I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear ‘woke woke woke.’ It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is,” he said earlier this month.
But Trump is also shameless and free of an ideological foundation, so he’ll go where the GOP fury is. And the GOP fury these days is all about slamming LGBTQIA+ people. Indeed, Trump’s aside — in which he all but admits he’s just telling his base what they want to hear — is incredibly revealing.
TRUMP: Boy, what a bunch of easily manipulated rubes you people are, it's amazing, even after all this time I still can't believe how stupid you are
AUDIENCE: Woo hoo! You tell 'em, Trump! Yeah! https://t.co/SO4fWJDJaT— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) June 11, 2023
In short, today’s MAGA crowd loves a guy who’s not only a twice-indicted possible criminal who may be going to the slammer, but also a guy who basically tells them to their faces that he’s using them to re-amass power.
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