Trumpism: A Middle Finger to the World

Although there was no explicit violence?more than a few shoves by police officers expelling two or three troublemakers?Donald Trump‘s meeting with 6,000 of his most intimate friends in an equestrian center in Las Vegas last Monday night, was an unfolding of verbal violence against possibly imagined enemies: the press, other candidates, president Obama (boooo), Obamacare (it’s killing our country!), Hillary Clinton (boooo), Mexico, China, the bad corporations, the bad government and everything that does not sit well with Trump and his beloved followers.

Trump, surrounded by crowds and excited with his image, sets the example.

“How I love the old days,” said Trump, as police forcibly pulled a man who had begun to shout to interrupt his speech.

“You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this?” Trump said. “They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks. Ah, I’d like to punch him in the face.”

Given this declaration, thousands of people rose from their seats, beating their fists and shouting wildly, like spectators in a sort of modern Roman Coliseum in which, although people are not thrown to the beasts, they speaks of it in a nostalgic way.

“Go to hell, I hope you die, go to hell!”, yelled and jumped up a middle-aged and venerable gray-haired man sitting next to me on the floor of the arena, his eyes jumping out of their orbits and the veins of his neck swollen.

The curse was toward the protester, who left enchanted, giving “high fives” and escorted by four policemen. After finishing his rant, the grey-haired man sat quiet again with his HD video camera to continue taking pictures of his thrilling experience.

Almost everyone seemed to be having a fantastic time. The atmosphere was festive: there was music, colorful costumes, white placards with huge red letters: Trump, Make America Great Again! To entertain themselves while waiting for their idol for more than an hour, people in the stands started doing “the wave” and shouted USA, USA, USA!

The great introduction was made by a well-known Sheriff to the immigrant community: Joe Arpaio, from Arizona, who was taking pictures with a man disguised as Elvis Presley when I approached him.

“How are you, Sheriff?” I asked Arpaio, best known for being a great big mouth that places his detainees in tents in the desert of Arizona with pink panties and whose own problems with the law fill entire pages (abuse of power, politics of persecuting enemies, violation of civil rights, waste of public funds, thousands of private lawsuits; the list goes on).

“I’m alive, don’t you see?” he replied, giving me a strong handshake. “Alive and kicking! Still defiant and my voters still support me.”

But Arpaio, who is already 84, is losing power. His Trump introduction speech was disjointed, more than usual, with obvious memory lapses.

“I must not talk about me. I came here to talk about Trump,” said Arpaio, to then start with a detailed but messy account of his own curriculum. At some point he said that Hillary Clinton should visit his jail in Phoenix because “I have a pair of pink panties for her.”

“Bravooo!” shouted the audience. “Hillary, booooooo!”

Trump arrived on stage followed by a triumphant music, a là Rocky Balboa. From there he gave an impromptu–but repetitive–speech with all his “big hits.”

“Don’t worry my friends, the border wall is coming. Who will pay for the wall?” he asked, letting the audience answer loudly.

“Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!” shouted all. Two obese bald guys in shirt jumped behind me bawling. “Mexico, Mexico, boooooo!”

For Trump, there is nothing comparable to his own courage. “You really have to have testicles to be a candidate for president,” he said of himself.

“And they do not give me enough credit because I am paying for everything by myself. So, when I get to the White House, no one can tell me what to do because no one gave me money. I will do what is best for the American people.“

Some “trumpisms”:

• Health reform is killing the country.
• Ted Cruz is a “sick guy.”
• Everything will be beautiful when I’m president.
• Get that guy out of here (talking about one of several protesters expelled).
• We are told that we cannot build a wall. China built one of 13,000 miles 2000 years ago. How can’t we do the same with many Caterpillar tractors?
• “We do not win anything, but with me in the White House we will win everything! You are going to get tired of so much winning!

Sometime during the speech, Trump turned to face the cameras and journalists platform that was in the back of the arena, normally used for equestrian events.

“Those are the most dishonest people in the world, the media. They always tell lies about me. They do not show the crowd. They say that Bernie had a lot of people, I have more and they do not show it, “he said. “Dishonest!”

Thousands of people stood, jeering and gesticulating against journalists. “Damn! Jerks…”

A resounding man with small glasses turned to the press platform and, raising the middle finger of his left hand, he directed all his contempt towards them.

A gesture that may well sum up the followers’ feelings towards Trump and the candidate himself: a big middle finger toward the rest of world.