Say what you will, Donald Trump is leaving it all on the field.
He started last week with a campaign rally Monday in Ohio. On Tuesday he was in Alaska. He had two rallies Wednesday, one in Arizona and another in Montana. He was off the road Thursday but participated in two televised town halls that evening, then was in Georgia on Friday and Kentucky on Saturday for rallies.
This week, it’s a rally a day. Monday, Kansas; Tuesday, North Carolina; Wednesday, South Carolina; Thursday, Iowa; Friday, Florida; Saturday, back to Georgia; Sunday, Michigan.
Next week is starting to shape up. Right now, there are two stops scheduled in Texas on Tuesday.
The routine is the same: Mr. Trump walks onstage to “God Bless the U.S.A.” He talks for more than an hour, his remarks wandering here, there and everywhere. He exits the rally dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Afterward, the 80-year-old president flies home to Washington or Palm Beach, Fla., arriving late in the evening, sometimes after midnight. It must be exhausting for him and his team.
At his rallies Mr. Trump reprises his role on “The Apprentice”—host and executive producer—only now the show is the country. Each rally is another episode in a familiar story: The nation is in peril, and only he can save it.
He understands that a rally needs what any successful reality show has: tension and controversy, villains he can insult and saddle with ugly nicknames. And the audience must be reminded of how bad it was under “Sleepy Joe” Biden and how great things are today.
There must be a hero, and it’s him. He is funny and has plenty of targets for his jabs, though rarely himself. They land on the opposition, and occasionally on allies, including the person for whom he is campaigning. But they’re a sideshow.
There must be praise, plenty of it, heaped on the head man by those he allows on stage. There are asides, one after another, as the president takes the audience into his confidence and shares his innermost thoughts. Rallygoers want to hear favorite lines and familiar themes. But like any long-running series, the show needs plot twists—new stories, inside information, a surprise guest.
Each campaign rally must build to a powerful close with superlatives and self-congratulations for “unbelievable progress” and “new levels of greatness, the likes of which nobody thought was possible to even think of attaining.”
This is political theater, the likes of which we’ve not seen. It’s also a huge bet. The president is gambling his omni-presence will animate more MAGA supporters who otherwise wouldn’t vote than energize more of the 60% of Americans who disapprove of him or the job he’s doing.
It’s too soon to know if this bet will pay off, but it carries real risks. The rallies keep him in the headlines, but as a partisan figure in a midterm election in which voters render their verdict on him. His biggest fans would probably vote anyway. Less enthusiastic supporters are the ones whose votes Republicans need.
