OAKS, Pa. — Donald Trump’s “town hall” rally in this Philadelphia suburb Monday night careened from worrisome to deeply weird, even for a politician always more enamored with spectacle than policy.
This was the latest stop on the Republican presidential nominee’s doom-and-gloom tour. You know the drill by now. In Trump’s vastly oversimplified version of America, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the authors of our nation’s decline.
He again offered his promise to somehow boost America’s economy by deporting millions of people and encouraging more drilling for oil.
But back-to-back emergencies at the rally ‒ two people packed into a large hall appeared to suffer from heat exhaustion and required medical attention ‒ punched a 20-minute hole in the event. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, serving as moderator, appeared flummoxed about how to proceed.
The former president took over, calling on his staff to fill the room with recorded music, as if he were just some a guy at home asking Alexa to play Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley and others.
”Would anybody else like to faint?” Trump asked as the second person was carried out of the hall and the crowd started to thin. He then stayed on stage, bopping about to the tunes, while some lingered to watch.
Monday’s slap-happy approach to campaigning came even as Trump has shifted into darker and darker rhetoric.
The campaign’s vibe feels zeroed in on........