Two years ago, a few weeks before the midterm elections, I visited Wilmington, North Carolina, ostensibly to follow the state’s Senate race but also to listen to Donald Trump.
A lot has changed since then.
Trump later endorsed unnamed backbench Congressman Ted Budd over Richard Burr, one of the senators who convicted Trump for his actions on January 6.
Of course, the rally at the Wilmington Aero Center wasn’t focused on Budd or any other Republican. Instead, he created a dramatic scene after landing before taking the stage and walking around for the better part of an hour and a half.
The incident comes shortly after the FBI issued a search warrant to seize classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and New York Attorney General Letitia James faces a new lawsuit after calling him “Peekaboo James” (a ridiculous and likely racist nickname) at the rally.
Despite this, Trump captivated the crowd in Wilmington in 2022. Towards the end, he played ominous music as he spoke, almost like a prayer, that completely captivated the crowd.
Almost two years later, Trump returned to the Aero Center, this time as a candidate. But Trump appeared much more diminished as he attempted to return to the White House.
Moreover, Trump’s efforts appear much more desperate, a sign that he no longer has the stamina he once did as he struggles to defeat Kamala Harris.
Losing Biden, by contrast, would seem to be a dead giveaway for Trump. In 2022 and in fact, most of Trump’s rallies since leaving the White House have focused largely on Biden, opening his rallies with a supercut of Biden stumbling over his words or appearing weak.
No such montage was made on Saturday, but early in her speech she played a clip of Harris saying the word “story” over and over, as if to suggest that Harris is an overly rehearsed and scripted candidate. But Trump is somewhat aware that he is trailing Harris, even in North Carolina, where he is currently tied.
In fact, Harris said on CNN just before the rally that she had agreed to participate in a second debate against Trump.
“The problem with another debate is that it’s too late,” he told the crowd, bizarrely claiming he won the debate even though polls consistently showed Harris trailing him.
Similarly, Trump did not mention the character Hannibal Lecter. Silence of the Lambs he often mentions or refers to windmills that cause cancer, something Harris attacked him about during their Philadelphia debate, and he also didn’t go on many of the point-and-click tangents he usually does.
Trump focused on his core issues of immigration and crime at the U.S.-Mexico border at both rallies, but today he also offered a number of unrealistic policy proposals, such as capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent.
“Some of them are paying 25, 30 percent, it’s crazy,” Trump said.
He also discussed repealing tip and Social Security taxes, which many in his own party do not support.
Trump also addressed his new friend, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, on Saturday.
“We will get there, and that’s my plan. I’ll talk to Elon, I’ll get those rocket ships going,” he said. “We want to get to Mars before my term is up.”
Similarly, Trump hasn’t seemed to figure out how to talk to women in the last two years. Instead, he quoted a bizarre rant he gave earlier on Truth Social about women, saying they were poorer and less healthy than they were during his administration.
“Finally, this national nightmare we’re in will be over,” he said. “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You won’t have to think about abortion anymore because it’s where it should always be: in the states and by the vote of the people.”
This will certainly infuriate many anti-abortion conservatives who feel that Trump has turned on them by not supporting a national abortion ban.
Similarly, many women in North Carolina may be unhappy that the Republican legislature signed a 12-week abortion ban.
But perhaps one of the biggest changes was the absence of Trump’s biggest supporter in North Carolina. Two years ago, Mark Robinson was preparing to run for governor and spoke before Trump. When he hinted that he might run, he got a standing ovation almost as big as Trump’s.
Since then, Robinson has become a liability for Trump. CNN reported earlier this week that he frequently spoke of being a “black NAZI” on an internet pornography forum and said he would own slaves if he could.
Despite his public condemnation of transgender people, his alleged comments suggested he had a predisposition to watch pornography featuring transgender women.
Robinson not only didn’t attend, he didn’t show up at the rally in Wilmington. Indeed, Trump didn’t even mention the gubernatorial race while yelling at numerous elected officials, presumably thinking it was already lost.
That doesn’t mean all is lost for Trump. For one thing, he still packed the Aero Center and got plenty of applause. Polls still show him neck and neck in the state.
But the Trump show isn’t what it used to be. And unlike in 2022, he couldn’t even walk away to Sam and Dave’s hit “Hold On, I’m Comin’” like he once did.
Trump has always been a complex man, but now that he has failed and made wild promises while trying to stay relevant, he is hard to understand.