You could hear a pin drop in Milwaukee on Thursday night when Donald Trump got straight to the point:
‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened and you’ll never hear it from me again, because it’s actually too painful to tell.’
I found myself in a circus of red, white and blue painted faces, emblazoned MAGA jackets and baseball caps, just 20 rows from the Republican National Convention stage.
The Oregon delegation was to my left, the Puerto Rican delegation to my right. Across the track, the Wisconsin Cheeseheads were sporting their glorious orange hats.
Texans proudly wore their ivory Stetsons as the live band played. Arizonans were decked out in white ear wraps, some personalized in a Star Spangled design.
Behind me sat the Trump family in their private box.
I could make out Melania’s profile, fresh off a private jet and glowing red. She had just sucked up all the oxygen in the stadium and strode in like a WWE diva to the trembling strings of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, before an abrupt cut to Kid Rock’s rousing pre-Donald performance.
You could hear a pin drop in Milwaukee on Thursday night when Donald Trump got straight to the point.
I found myself in a circus of red, white and blue painted faces, emblazoned MAGA jackets and baseball caps, just 20 rows from the Republican National Convention stage.
The Oregon delegation was to my left, the Puerto Rican delegation to my right. Across the track, the Wisconsin Cheeseheads were sporting their glorious orange hats.
Musically, the evening was beginning to sound like orange juice and toothpaste, but who cared?
Trump was about to make his first public remarks since a pizza-faced 20-year-old moron eluded the world’s once most respected security service to come within an inch and a stiff breeze of being shot dead.
Following Saturday’s attack, rumors emerged that Trump would only appear remotely.
No possibility.
This showman by excellence I was going to seize this moment like a winning dairy cow at the Iowa State Fair.
“It was a warm, beautiful evening in Butler Township, in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Trump said.
They were the first lines of a bedtime story that should never be read to a child.
But the Trumptastic ladies in custom MAGA glitter dresses, the regular delegates in suits and ties, and the grey-haired men dressed as Uncle Sam were all ready to explode, if not a little manic after being bombarded with a psychedelic pop parade of Americana music.
Moments ago, Hulk Hogan, with his muscular frame, had removed his shirt to reveal a Trump and Vance T-shirt. (I saw Don blow a kiss to the Hulkster from the family box.)
Evangelist Franklin Graham calmed the growing animal impulses with an appeal to our Lord and Savior, whom he personally thanked for saving Trump from an assassin’s bullet.
Kid Rock broke some artificial hips with his ode ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
And UFC president Dana White did his best Macho Man Randy Savage impression (‘Need a little excitement? Join the Democrats!’).
A slick, pre-produced video tracing Trump’s life story, from his youth as a New York real estate mogul to reality TV star and president, left me wondering: Has Don Draper come out of retirement?
A muscled Hulk Hogan had removed his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance T-shirt. (I saw Don blow a kiss to the Hulkster from the family box.)
The normie delegates in suits and ties and the grey-haired men dressed as Uncle Sam were ready to burst, if not a little frantic. They had just been the target of an American brainstorm.
Kid Rock broke some artificial hips with his country-rap-rock ode to Trump.
And then the stage lit up: “TRUMP” in giant Broadway bulbs.
The man of the moment took the stage as singer Lee Greenwood belted out “God Bless the USA.”
The helmet and jacket of slain firefighter hero Corey Comperatore, who died while protecting his family from gunfire by Trump’s assassin on Saturday, were placed stage right.
Everyone around me was crying.
A woman was sobbing so hard that she was wiping her eyes with the fake bandage on her ear.
“I heard a loud whooshing sound and I felt something hit me very, very hard. In my right ear. I said, ‘Wow, what was that? It could only have been a bullet,'” Trump recalled to the enthralled audience.
“I put my right hand to my ear and pulled it down. My hand was covered in blood. There was blood everywhere.”
An older man wearing a white cowboy hat with Trump 2024 buttons on the lapel of his white cotton jacket was desperately trying to maintain his composure, his chin quivering and his eyes misty.
Only the naive among us are not cynical about politics, but I must say this rang true to me.
Following the extraordinary events of Saturday night, an assassination attempt was launched against a former president, .
I was either feeling dizzy or excited (it’s hard to tell) by the psychedelic pop culture cycle, but we had definitely gotten to the really good part.
“To every citizen, whether young or old, man or woman, Democrat, Republican or Independent, black or white, Asian or Hispanic, I extend a hand of loyalty and friendship,” he shouted loudly, and we believed him.
This speech transcended politics, because it was not about the clumsy Joe Biden or the smiling Kamala.
This is the Trump that the smug know-it-alls on the coast refuse to acknowledge.
He relates to people.
And if he had left it there, glued to the teleprompter, concluding the round of emotions, then there would not have been a single expert in the universe of cable news who could credibly conclude that it was not one of the most masterful closing conventions in modern history.
However, that would have been too simple for such a complicated man leading such a wild, unruly and unpredictable MAGA movement.
Thus, the clock was ticking while the great artist went off script.
When Don from Oregon leaned over next to me, I thought he had dropped his phone, but this sweet guy in his 60s was doing squats to keep his legs from falling asleep.
The entire Puerto Rican crew had taken their seats.
A nice lady from Maine asked if the paused teleprompter was broken.
“No,” I assured her while she looked genuinely worried, “he’s just winging it.”
The speech transcended politics, because this was not the bumbling Joe Biden or the sneering Kamala. This is the Trump that the smug know-it-alls on the coast refuse to acknowledge.
Minutes turned into what seemed like weeks as 45 took a trip down memory lane, from her love story with Kim Jong Un to Venezuelan rapists.
I swear I heard the SpongeBob narrator announce in a French accent, “three… hours… later…”
However, when I looked at the Trump family box, I felt a sense of relief. Everything was empty!
Surely that meant they would be taken backstage to meet their patriarch at any moment.
No!
For 40 minutes he continued forward.
Jean, from Delaware, agreed that it had all taken a little longer than it should have, but wisely added: “That’s what you expect from a man who cheated death.”
And as the entire Trump family gathered on stage and balloons fell from the ceiling, I reflected on the crazy spectacle we had just witnessed.
In more ways than one, Jean is right.
Trump has escaped death, and now it seems he is just starting over.
