Only Air Force One was missing. For the rest it seemed to have gone back in time, to 2020, to the presidential campaign, when thousands flocked to Donald Trump’s rallies, even in the midst of the pandemic. In Wellington, Ohio, for the first post-presidential MAGA rally, fans await him early in the sun, huddled in the heat. He, following the usual script, shows up late, at sunset, red hat in hand matching the tie, dark suit, white shirt and forelock.
He greets, smiles, and takes the stage to the tune of Lee Greenwood (“God Bless America”). Despite having been banned from social media for the attack on Congress on January 6, The Donald, since leaving the White House, has remained far from silent, has given interviews, circulated press releases, has spoken at important rallies of the Grand Old Party. But that of Wellington, is the first MAGA rally, it marks the return of Trump in the environment that is more congenial to him, the mega mass rallies, the direct contact with his ultras. The format is always the same, the show is Donald Trump and his show is sold-out. For the former head of the White House, the electoral campaign has already started: “We will take back the House and Senate”, “we will win in 2022 and 2024”, “Joe Biden is destroying the nation before our eyes”, “we will take back the America and we will do it ”.
To begin with, he asks to kick out the Republicans who voted in favor of his second impeachment in the House for inciting insurrection (10 deputies plus Senator Lisa Murkowski), he will campaign against each of them. In Wellington, Congressman Anthony Gonzalez (“a fake Republican”) is being targeted. Trump supports Max Miller, his former advisor who challenged Gonzalez to next year’s GOP primaries in view of the ‘midterm’.
Trump engages in the great classic of his repertoire, the rhetoric against illegal immigration (“We had left the new administration the safest southern border ever” but “they are deliberately and systematically dismantling it”) and reads, once again, ” The Snake “, comparing illegal immigrants to the snake (from the poem) that a woman welcomes into her house to save him from the cold and it kills her by biting her. Attacks Kamala Harris (” Your vice president went to the border for a simple reason, because I announced that I would go “). He claims that he was the one who obtained the vaccines against Covid” in record time “and that he had claimed from day one that the virus came from Wuhan. He accuses Biden of bowing” to enemies ” , China, Iran, “in front of everyone”.
She claims to be ashamed of the Supreme Court (where she has appointed 3 conservative judges, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett,), guilty of not intervening to ‘rectify’ the result of the presidential elections, “the fraud of the century”, against which he will never stop fighting (“We won 2 elections, we will also have to win the third”). According to a Reuters / Ipsos poll, 53% of Republicans believe Trump won the election in 2020. Trump has no intention of stepping aside. (“Our movement is not over, it is just beginning, we are a movement, a family, a glorious nation before God. We will make America powerful again, rich again, strong again, proud again, of safe again, we’ll make America great again “). He talks for over an hour, takes his leave on the notes of YMCA, mentions the ballet. Everything already seen, everything already heard but the show is sold out. He has not decided if he will reapply in 2024 but his audience has no doubts, he wants an encore (at the White House).