In all the fuss over the President of the United States’ decision to make fun of a woman who says his Supreme Court nominee attacked her—and the inevitable crocodile tears from Republicans as it became even clearer that they are primarily motivated by cruelty—another bizarre moment from Trump’s latest rally has slipped by more or less unremarked. In the middle of his speech, Trump performed a weird little play in-character as a man accused of sexual harassment. It must have been a real stretch. Here’s Trump’s monologue, which, again, is something the President of the United States wanted to share with the nation::
This is a time when your father, when your husband, when your son could do great. “Mom, I did great in school, I’ve worked so hard. Mom, I’m so pleased to tell you I just got a fantastic job with IBM. I just got a fantastic job with General Motors. I just got—I’m so proud. Mom, a terrible thing just happened. A person who I’ve never met said that I did things that were horrible, and they’re firing me from my job, Mom. I don’t know what to do. Mom, what do I do? What do I do, Mom? What do I do, Mom?” It’s a damn sad situation.
There are a lot of amazing things here, but don’t miss the moment where Trump, trying to think of good, solid American jobs, comes up with only IBM and General Motors, then stops himself just before blurting out Pan-Am. Fortunately, Stephen Colbert noticed Trump’s foray into the dramatic arts, and went so far as to perform another monologue from the same one-man-show, Downfall of a Fictional American Man.
There’s only so much interest anyone can take in the exact paths followed by the marbles rolling around Trump’s skull, but it does seem worth noting that Trump’s performance draws heavily from the work of Al Martino, who played Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. That scene wasn’t exactly set up to make Fontaine sympathetic, which may be a useful data point when judging the sincerity of Trump’s concern for anyone other than Trump. But look, the point of Trump’s little morality tale is that a person who’s never met you can say you did horrible things and cost you your job. I’ve never met Donald Trump, which means I’m uniquely qualified to test his theory. Donald Trump has done horrible things. And now, we play the waiting game.
