Inside the ‘nexus’: How Donald Trump’s rhetoric became darker and windier

DULUTH, Ga. — Since 2015, no stage has dominated American politics as well as Donald Trump taking the stage for more than an hour to a chorus of “Make America Great Again” red hats.

The routine stream of consciousness, interrupting one thought with the next, is not a polemic that Cicero or Lincoln would recognize. The former president and GOP candidate calls his speech style “weave,” moving from dystopian warnings to lighthearted storytelling to political statements.

“You give a speech and my speeches take a long time because of the weaving, you know, I mean I weave stories into them,” Trump explained to popular podcaster Joe Rogan last week. “If you don’t do that, if you just read the teleprompter, no one’s going to get very excited. You have to weave it. So you – but you always have to – as you say, you always have to get back to work immediately. Otherwise it’s not good. But the weave is very, very important. Very few weavers in the area. But it’s a big burden on you – you know, it’s a big – it takes a lot of work. It’s a lot of work.”

In the final weeks of his third presidential campaign, Trump’s presentation became as chaotic as ever, and especially darker. But the crowds still come, cheering his nationalist populism, laughing at his insults and chanting with raised fists, making his blessed promises to make America strong, proud, healthy, wealthy and, of course, great again.

All of Trump’s speeches, while never the same, use consistent devices and themes. It has humor, boasts, anecdotes, regrets and great promises. There are non sequiturs, fantastic lies and withering attacks on opponents. He sprinkles vulgarisms and superlatives. Every now and then you’ll even read excerpts from teleprompters where he mocks any other politician using them and then claims he doesn’t use teleprompters or doesn’t need them.

Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent, is encouraging voters to meet with him in person, suggesting that doing so will only reinforce the belief that he is unpredictable and unfit for office. Other critics compare his elaborate performing arts to those of authoritarian leaders. They also claim that the “splice” is simply a cover for the cognitive decline of the 78-year-old, who would be the oldest newly sworn-in US president in history.

Here’s a study of “the weave” conducted one evening last week in suburban Atlanta.

An impressive entrance and enough details – even lies – support the case

Perhaps the most important moment is Trump’s entrance. His fight music, which is reminiscent of his brief career as a wrestling promoter, is “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood. The former president stands on stage, quiet and solemn, while the crowd sings along with him.

At the recent Turning Point USA rally in Duluth, Georgia, pyrotechnic effects and large video screens surrounding him in the center of the stage added to the effect, with his likeness on the screen towering above the crowd. Trump stared at thousands of cellphones recording the spectacle.

After delivering the final notes of Greenwood’s opening anthem, Trump immediately relaxed and praised his audience, calling them “thousands of proud, hard-working Americans and patriots, that’s what you are.”

Then, in a more formal tone, he seemed to move on to the prompters: “I would like to start by asking a very simple question. Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

It’s a famous question that Republican Ronald Reagan used when defeating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Trump is using it to link Harris to President Joe Biden. But as soon as the crowd in Duluth shouted “no,” Trump turned to enthusiastic promises, hyperbole and superlatives that became accusations against Biden and Harris.

“I will end inflation. I will stop the invasion of criminals on our country,” he said, suggesting that all migrants are criminals.

“We are going to fix our nation quickly,” he said. “America will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than ever before. This election is a choice between whether we will face four more years of incompetence, failure and disaster, or whether we will enter the four greatest years in the history of our country.”

In Trump’s parlance, Biden and Harris are not just bad. He called them the “worst president” and “worst vice president” of all time. Harris, he warned, “will destroy your family’s finances forever.” He blames Harris himself for the “open border,” taking liberties with immigration and crime statistics and falsely implying that the vice president single-handedly controls U.S. immigration policy.

He interjected that Harris “didn’t get the votes” – a reference to her becoming the Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew from the party’s primary. “Therefore,” Trump insisted, “she is a threat to democracy” — which is Trump’s basis for projecting onto his opponents their most aggressive attacks against him.

Before he finished in Duluth, he ridiculed Harris as a “low IQ person” and “not a very smart person.”

Thousands of people laughed from every side.

Transitions and accuracy are never necessary

Trump does not speak in a linear manner, building to a crescendo. From his first knockdowns with Harris, he began expressing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Helene, and then, infuriatingly, turned to one of his favorite topics: his public standing.

“Our hearts are with you and we are praying for you – polls, regardless. Polls,” he said. “You see what’s happening here? Here, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee? And Georgia. Surveys. The polls blew up.”

Minutes later, during the audience’s audible silence, he threw out his signature “MAGA” slogan to cheers.

“What a nice crowd!” – he replies with a chuckle. “What a nice crowd.”

He returned to the prompter to display numbers showing the impact of inflation on American households. He asked “should I sue” CBS and “60 Minutes” for, in his words, manipulating answers from the Harris interview that came “from a crackpot.”

“This is election interference and fraud,” he said, outlining the charges that are part of the ongoing criminal cases against him.

Trump mocked Harris for saying she would raise taxes, but falsely portrayed her proposals as universally applicable. (Targets corporations and the wealthiest individual clients). Meanwhile, Trump’s 2017 tax cuts were “the largest tax cuts in history,” he said. (At best, a charitable interpretation that ignores inflation.)

However, specifics are not the most important thing

Timothy and Amanda Browning came to different conclusions about Trump’s style after arriving from the mountain town of Lula, Georgia, for their first Trump rally.

“I liked it because it shows how authentic he is,” Timothy Browning said. “There are moments of silence, but you have to stick with it because there’s always a zinger coming.”

Amanda Browning laughed as she recalled leaning over to her husband and whispering that Trump “certainly could use a speechwriter.”

Nevertheless, the co-owners of the event space and catering company in Lula confirmed their loyalty to the former president.

Timothy wore a T-shirt with a sexist slur against Harris, coined by some conservatives after Biden named her his running mate in 2020. Browning, however, said he doesn’t think of himself, Trump or the former president’s supporters as bad.

Instead, the Brownings focused on Trump’s first-term economy and his promises for an encore. When talking about their business, they talked about specific price increases they have seen since the pandemic-era inflation. They had no interest in supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent global oil markets into turmoil. They argue that Trump has put them in a better position than Biden and, by extension, Harris.

Timothy Browning summed up his observations in Trump terms.

“I hear him,” Browning said, “putting America first.”