There they go!
We all know that the one thing that Donald Trump is most sensitive about is the size of the crowds at his rallies — don’t you dare impugn his popularity! Kamala Harris derailed him at their debate by mentioning that lots of people leave his rallies early, and he had to deny that. Well, the Washington Post had reporters investigate, going to his rallies and asking the people trickling out early why they were leaving.
The Republican presidential nominee consistently draws large, enthusiastic and rowdy crowds to his rallies and other campaign events, and at nearly all of them, another trend is clear: Scores of people leave early.
Most stay. But Trump often runs late and goes long, prompting many to bow out because of other responsibilities, priorities or, sometimes, waning patience and interest, according to Washington Post interviews and observations across dozens of events. Some said they wanted to beat traffic or had work the next day. Others complained about sound quality. One man wanted to go home to his French bulldog. Another needed to get home to his daughter. A third had a Yorkie with him that started acting out. A fourth man said his phone died.
Trump is in denial.
“Honestly nobody” leaves the rallies, Trump said at a recent town hall in Flint, Mich. At an event in Walker, Mich., Trump insisted “nobody ever leaves,” before adding, “and when they do, I finish up quick, believe me.” Trump then suggested that it looks like people are leaving their seats because they want to come up and take photos with him.
He thinks the people just love to hear him ramble on for hours.
Trump repeatedly has resisted entreaties from advisers and allies to cut down on his speeches. “They want a show. They want two hours,” Trump said this year to an ally who suggested shorter speeches. Like others, the ally spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
The former president has told advisers that after people stand for so long and wait for so long, he needs to give them something more than a “boring policy speech,” one person who has spoken to him said. The speechwriters craft remarks that are usually designed to go for 60 to 90 minutes, a campaign adviser said, but they know Trump will veer repeatedly off the script.
I’ve only heard short excerpts from Trump speeches — I think two hours of an old man babbling off topic would drive me insane, and I’m never attending one of these rallies. However, I encourage him to continue them, because the repetitive nonsense about sharks and batteries and windmills and eating cats and dogs are the only soundbites that are going to make the news, and they do make him look demented.
They seem to be reluctant to admit that the real reason they’re leaving is because he’s completely insufferable to listen to even to them, his most loyal supporters.
Anyone with any sense already found him insufferable, but I believe his worsening cognitive decline and resultant nonsensical ramblings are why his lemmings no longer find him compelling to listen to. They’re too invested in him to admit this even to themselves.
I think it’s what I like to call “the Jordan Peterson” effect, where people don’t understand what’s being said and assumes it’s because he’s so smart.
Because who doesn’t leave their seat to go take a selfie with the speaker WHILE HE IS STILL SPEAKING! Especially one heavily guarded by the SS.
Well, in fairness…hahahahahaha…to get the real picture, you’d need to compare his numbers to how often people leave other political rallies early. I would not be surprised if it’s a significant number. Do we have any idea about that? Also, you might want to do a more rigorous survey of why people are leaving early.
Oddly enough when I search for “percentage of people who leave political rallies early” I got a bunch of news articles about it, including this Washington Post article, feeding off the WaPo story.
I did find this Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation article about the size of rally audiences titled “The Real Numbers: Tracking Crowd Sizes at Presidential Rallies” (here). That links to another Ash Center website for the “Crowd Counting Consortium” (here) which seems to produce tables of crowd estimates for political rallies. Neither the article nor the Consortium data includes any numbers for “leaving early”.
The article does make this point:
Clearly the Ash Center is “Democratic”…I mean “Kennedy” school after all (excepting RFK Junior)…and therefore prejudiced against Don Don.
Perhaps the WaPo editors are just trolling Trump…and I bet it works. The next news cycle has already kicked off.
Plus he only paid them for a certain amount of time and just the other day admitted that he hates to pay overtime.
I’m surprised at the lack of coverage from one of his most extreme attendance denials, from a theatre with a capacity of 1,000 people. According to Trump, there were around 1,500 to 2,000 people sitting under all those empty seats, but there were another 50,000 outside who couldn’t get in. This was apparently due to the Secret Service and all of those private security officials that a billionaire should easily be able to afford, being too busy protecting world leaders including the president of Iran. I did come across more than 5 times the criticism over Walz getting the month of one of his China visits 30 years ago off by a month or two though, despite my deliberate avoidance of right wing “news” sources and influencers.
10 seconds is the most I can listen to Trump. How these people can sit through his entire rally should be studied by phycologists. This type of behavior must be part of a mental or emotion defect that contributes to their personality disorder.