For those who are confused by Donald TrumpWhen he made forays into meandering speeches about electrocution, selling bacon or cannibalistic killers at his recent political rallies, the former American president had an explanation.
Trump assured supporters in Pennsylvania on Saturday that what might sound like incoherent ramblings as he frequently deviates from his written speech are in fact indicators of his genius that have impressed other great minds.
“I do weaving. You know what weaving is? I’m going to talk about nine different things that all fit together beautifully. And it’s like friends of mine who are English teachers are saying, ‘This is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’” he told a bemused audience.
“But fake news, you know what they say: ‘He rambled.’ That’s not rambling. What you do is you leave one topic and mention another topic and then come back to the topic, and you go through it for two hours, and you don’t even say a word out of place.”
But increasingly others are not convinced, including some of his own supporters.
Trump has a long history of deviating from written speeches, the words on the automated transcript prompting disparate thoughts and digressions that he then pursues and embellishes. But Timothy O’Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, said Trump’s public speaking has now come under scrutiny and concern about his mental acuity — in the same way that Joe Biden He faced difficulties that ultimately cost him his re-election.
What we see now is a reflection of someone who is very troubled and very desperate.
Tim O’Brien
“The reason he now gives convoluted explanations for his speech patterns in public appearances is that he is aware that people have noticed that he is speaking even less logically than before,” he said. “What we see today is a reflection of a very troubled and very desperate person.”
Recent examples of Trump’s pretension to weave complex explanations include his repeated references to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibalistic serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs, when discussing immigration. Trump frequently, and falsely, claims that foreign governments empty their prisons and “insane asylums” and send former residents across the U.S. border to commit crimes. Trump then segues into discussing the sociopath he calls the “late, great Hannibal Lecter,” whom he described, disconcertingly, at a rally as “a wonderful man.”
Last week in Wisconsin, Trump was asked what he would do “to make life more affordable and lower inflation.” He used the question to lambast green energy, arguing that Biden’s expansion of wind power had driven up the cost of electricity and increased inflation. That, Trump said, had put the price of bacon out of reach for many ordinary Americans.
“You take a…
