The GOP just finished its novel-idea Midterm Convention. The faithful sat through an endless onslaught of speakers, and Mr. MAGA himself, Donald Trump, spoke twice, the first time for an hour and 45 minutes.
I tuned in and out while mostly viewing NFL games on Wednesday and Thursday. When I did change the channel during the times when President Trump was speaking, I had the sensation that “I think I’ve heard this hundreds of times before.”
In his book, “The Art of the Deal,” Trump writes about how he uses “truthful hyperbole” to drive home a point and seal a deal. His Wednesday night speech, from what I could gather while tuning in and out, was a concatenation of not-very-truthful hyperboles.
I’m not sure if he mentioned it Wednesday, but a hyperbole he keeps making is how much foreign investment is being made in the U.S. under his watch. Earlier this year, he had the figure at $19 trillion. Now, he’s upped it to $20-plus trillion. No one outside his administration has been able to find more than $3 trillion in pledges, not real investments.
Rather than hyperbole, a lot of what Trump claims in his talks more resembles outright lies. He claims the Strait of Hormuz is open, but Iran is still blowing up ships that try to use the strait.
Here’s what Trump wrote about hyperbole in his book:
“I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.”
That aside, Trump also goes on and on endlessly in his campaign speeches, for example, nearly two hours on Wednesday. This got me thinking, “How long did other movement leaders speak when rallying their followers?”
Gemini AI to the rescue. I asked Gemini to compare Trump’s speeches with those of Lenin and Hitler. Sorry that both were evil individuals, but they also created historic movements, as did our Donald Trump. Here are the results:
Vladimir Lenin: Average Length: 10 to 30 minutes for general public addresses; strictly under 3 minutes for audio recordings.
Adolph Hitler: Average Length: 1 to 2.5 hours (60 to 150 minutes).
Donald Trump: Average Length: 60 to 90+ minutes (averaging ~82 minutes for campaign rallies).
Lenin lived in an era before mass media and technology enabled longer speeches. Hitler could speak on the radio and be recorded, and he could also be filmed. Trump has everything at his disposal, including live TV exposure.
(I’m sure Democrats will love the comparison to Hitler, since they called Sir Donald that many times during the 2024 presidential campaign.)
My main point, however, beyond the length of his speeches, is that President Trump is so repetitive that, when you listen to him, you have a pretty good idea of what he’s going to say about each point he’s making.
That makes it pretty hard for those outside of his MAGA followers and cohorts to sit through his speeches. You heard one, you heard ’em all.
The bottom line is that Trump fatigue is rampant, and that doesn’t bode well for the midterm elections, which are pretty much a referendum on the president and his party, whoever the president is.
