To understand Donald Trump’s epic (in length, not content) speech on the first night of the Midterm Republican Convention nobody but him wanted to hold, you need to appreciate that the president really does believe the stuff he says about his accomplishments.

He’s not just trying to sell America on his dizzying narrative of national greatness totally destroyed before his arrival then restored and improved then totally destroyed again and most recently restored again to unimaginable heights. He’s sold on it himself. The president looks in gilded mirrors all day and sees a world-historical figure who should be basking in the grateful adulation of his subjects. Instead, his job approval ratings are chronically terrible (which he knows, for all the talk about fake polls) and despite all he’s done to tilt the playing field via money and gerrymandering, his party is probably cruising for a bruising in November. So he went to Dallas and surrounded himself with people as grateful and excited as everyone should be, and treated himself and his superfans to another recitation of his unparalleled success story.

He could have probably wrapped up and sat down after these initial comments about the choice Americans face in the midterms:

The choice in this election is very, very simple. Democrats are asking you to vote for their failed far left agenda. It’s never worked, that destroyed your finances and delivered you four years of disaster, bedlam and death under sleepy Joe Biden. And I’m asking you to let us finish the job we began with the greatest two years in the history of the presidency. This has been the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency. And together we will turn a 2-year comeback into a 250-year........

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