Thoughts

Let Me Tell You Just Really Quickly About Something That Didn't Happen

by Donald J. Trump

we have the best economy in the history of our country factories are real jobs are pouring back into the United States we are putting your great Indiana coal miners and still workers back to work we’re reclaiming our nation proud manufacturing Heritage in putting tariffs on foreign producers who cheat our workers and she hour companies not fair not fair as President McKinley once said long time ago we believe in American for American workers American wages for American laborers an American homes for American citizens just this week we made another truly historic announcement we are replacing NAFTA with a beautiful brand-new US-Mexico trade deal have as we speak Canada I will of Canada right but they have to get rid of those barriers and they have to get rid of those big Terence Canada showed up at the White House where the hell did she come from and now tomorrow that’s one person and now tomorrow you’re going to read headlines Trump had protesters all over the place one person one person major
protest what are they going to talk about the thousands and thousands of people inside of this Arena and outside of the Arena where we put screens because things are happening let me [tell] you just really quickly about something that didn’t happen so last week you probably saw it because it gets ratings they put it on television right if it didn’t get ready cuz I wouldn’t be putting it on but last week you saw it I was in the gray state of West Virginia we were at a fantastic Arena beautiful smaller than this but a very great place we had crowds at work and the enthusiasm I hate to tell you the enthusiasm that you have tonight in West Virginia it was exactly the same can’t get any more right and the failing New York Times which by the way if I wasn’t here though they would be out of business The Washington Post the New York CNN so a writer for the New York Times that pretends she knows what she’s talking about hasn’t got a flu and I’m telling you that she has some ways to say the place was packed she made the statement that President Trump was disappointed to see some Empty Chairs yet they were going to the bathroom

From a rush transcript in News Daily, done I believe by robot, with some errors that aren't Trump's (still for steel, "she hour" for "cheat our", "Terence" for "tariffs", "flu" for "clue"), and a female protester interrupting. I really like the way it communicates how the words are floods.

The quote from Major McKinley is somewhat real, from 1885, when the Major, then a Republican House member from Ohio, was traveling the country talking up the protective tariff, always the cause closest to his heart, though it was more for the little club of Ohio industrialists led by Mark Hanna who owned him that he was concerned, not so much the "American workmen... who may not have been born with a silver spoon in their mouths" to whom he adverted so pathetically—

McKinley was the first modern media candidate for the presidency, in 1896: his "Front Porch campaign" against William Jennings Bryan featured him remaining wrapped in his immense dignity at home while Bryan, the Boy Wonder, dashed from town to town with his spectacular oratory, but what McKinley did do was to get himself photographed by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (which had just been founded the year before, and in which McKinley's brother Abner and ex-president Benjamin Harrison were both shareholders), pretending to receive the news that the party had nominated him from his secretary George Cortelyou while Mrs. McKinley watched from the rocking chair, and removing his top hat to wipe his damp forehead as he pretended to realize what an awesome responsibility had unexpectedly fallen on his shoulders, and the bit of film traveled the country for him.

He wasn't a terrible president, either, I guess, though the US, recovering from the terrible crash of 1893, really didn't need a protective tariff almost as much as we don't need it now, and though he allowed himself to be tricked into war with Spain by Cuban intriguers, Commodore Dewey (who was desperate for a battle to earn him an admiralty), and Teddy Roosevelt. And it's not the place where America started going bad.

It was Maggie Haberman and Katie Rogers who reported that Trump seemed "disappointed" by a "flat crowd" and some empty seats in the West Virginia rally. I don't know if there's any evidence that the empty seats were a function of a bathroom rush.