The Trump Show Enters Its Darkest, Grimmest Episode Yet

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.”
In October 2016, it was the leaked recording heard ’round the world: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault while “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush guffawed beside him, two men joshing on a hot mic while riding around on a tour bus.
That searing image was supposed to bring Trump down. Surely, as many of us thought at the time, it would end his campaign, expose him for the dangerous fraud he was. But it didn’t. Enough voters bought a different image of him. It was an image — or rather, a mirage — Trump had been cultivating for decades: the role of the successful, competent businessman. He played that role in tacky cameos in “Home Alone 2” and “Sex and the City,” in bizarre McDonald’s and Pizza Hut commercials, and at the apex of his fame, as the star of his reality show, “The Apprentice.”
He kept performing that role through dozens of campaign rallies in 2015 and 2016 while spewing lies, conspiracy theories and all kinds of offensive comments about marginalized people. On those stages, which gave him countless hours of free airtime, he relished the glare of the spotlight and the ample opportunity to be a showman.
Eight years later, that same penchant for performance and obsession with image looked like it could finally bring Trump down. Maybe Americans could finally turn off the Trump channel. Yet enough voters still bought that image — and, as of Wednesday morning, likely more voters than in 2016 — even when presented with all evidence to the contrary.
In the closing days of his third consecutive presidential campaign, Trump’s performance revealed new lows even for him. He held a disgusting spectacle of a rally at Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan, which bore eerie similarities to a Nazi rally at an earlier iteration of the arena in 1939. Then, as now, speakers spouted fascist and nativist rhetoric, a preview of what a second Trump presidency would look like. At Trump’s rally, speaker after speaker unleashed a litany of racist and sexist attacks against his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, mocking her heritage, calling her “the anti-Christ” and “low-IQ,” and sickeningly insinuating that “her and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.”
The rally’s most enduring image was when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made a racist crack about Puerto Rico, calling the U.S. territory “a floating pile of garbage.” The clip went viral, shared on social media by Puerto Rican celebrities such as Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez. Days later, Lopez endorsed Harris at a rally in Las Vegas. And the “joke” looked like it would be the nail in the coffin for Trump’s campaign, drawing the ire of Puerto Rican voters in key states like Pennsylvania, some of whom said it was the tipping point in their decision to vote for Harris.
As for Trump, his attempts at performance in the campaign’s final weeks came off as pathetic and desperate. He turned what was supposed to be a town hall into a dance party — but a depressing one, like when you know the party’s probably winding down, and you’re the only one left on the dance floor. He pretended to work at a McDonald’s in suburban Philadelphia, looking like a child in a toy kitchen. It was a heavily choreographed scene: During Trump’s visit, the restaurant was closed to the public, and his campaign team preselected the customers.
On Oct. 30, Trump staged another strange photo-op, clad in a sanitation worker’s vest as a response to President Joe Biden’s “garbage” gaffe about Trump supporters earlier that week. But the main clip many people saw was of Trump tripping while trying to open the passenger side door on a Trump-branded garbage truck. Also making the rounds on the internet: a photo of Trump bellowing into a reporter’s microphone, the hue of his bright orange vest nearly matching that of his orange face, that had to be seen to be believed.
Images reveal. Throughout the fall, Trump’s signature rallies — where for nine years he has held court — devolved into a nonstop channel of regurgitated reruns and reboots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He spewed out the same geyser of grievances as he did in 2016, but delivered even more nonsensically. At his final rallies of the campaign, when candidates are supposed to make their closing arguments to voters, he ranted about microphone issues (including making a lewd gesture) and threatened violence against his opponents and the press while cameras panned to the empty seats throughout the arenas.
Images create contrast. In September, at the sole debate between the two candidates, there was something striking about the split-screen image of a raging and incoherent Trump opposite a highly prepared and stable Harris. During that debate, and throughout her campaign, Harris often used Trump’s own words to illustrate the clear differences between them. But enough voters still chose to believe the guy yelling about immigrants “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats,” despite it being thoroughly debunked.
Images endure. The youngest voters in this year’s election were just 10 when Trump was elected in 2016. As The Washington Post reported on Oct. 31, many of them are just now discovering Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” tape, circulating it on TikTok and influencing their peers as they vote for the first time.
“The fact that people knew about this, and he still won, is pretty wild to me,” Kate Sullivan, a 21-year-old student in Ohio, told the Post, after a TikTok video she made about Trump’s remarks got 2.5 million views.
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History is repeating itself. Somehow, after decades of the Trump show, enough voters still rejected the evidence of their own eyes and ears, choosing to believe the fraudulent image Trump has been selling — as fraudulent as his failed business ventures.
Trump and his allies have already shown us what a second Trump presidency will look like: continuing to demolish American democracy, exacting retribution against his enemies and rolling back more rights. Instead of winding down, the Trump show enters its darkest and grimmest episode yet.