Trump Ditches Boring Low Energy Q&A to Jam Out Over His Spotify Playlist For 39 Minutes

By Jacob Weindling  |  October 15, 2024 | 10:45am
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Elections Donald Trump
Trump Ditches Boring Low Energy Q&A to Jam Out Over His Spotify Playlist For 39 Minutes

It’s difficult to come up with a title for this that isn’t “what the hell!” or something just like The Washington Post’s descriptive headline of “Trump sways and bops to music for 39 minutes in unusual town hall episode.” The “weird” stuff earlier this year before Dick Cheney became Kamala Harris’s campaign manager was mostly a bit for fun as it clearly got under the GOP’s skin, but this? This is really fucking weird, man.

If you are a sicko like me, you can watch the entire shitshow here. This was supposed to be a question-and-answer session with South Dakota governor Kristi Noem moderating, but one person had a medical event that derailed it. After a few minutes to get them back in better shape, someone asked a question about the border, and Trump did his racist shtick before another person had a medical event in the crowded room and the Q&A stopped again. That’s where Trump’s id took over, and he said something that is going to stick in my head forever, periodically resurfacing to jar me loose from reality and further my descent into madness as an American political commentator.

“Let’s make this a musical-fest, oh looky looky. Two things: put up the chart—my favorite chart—my all-time favorite chart, and let’s listen to Pavarotti sing Ave Maria!”

And with that, Trump dragged the entire town hall into who he truly is: a catty Manhattan socialite with a deep passion for Broadway musicals and a hatred for immigrants (the chart he said he “kisses” every night is on border crossings). I am no expert on the political dynamics of Oaks, Pennsylvania, but I would venture a guess that Pavarotti is not one of the primary ways that local politicians usually try to reach their constituents.

Thirty-nine minutes!

What the fuck!

I have developed a pretty thick skin for Trumpist absurdity over the years. There are few things this man can do to surprise me at this point, and while I am well aware of how in Trump’s ideal world, he’d be reviewing Broadway musicals for Vanity Fair while gossiping at Condé Nast parties about who he thinks is gay, indulging in that base desire to this extreme degree in public still shook me a bit. Keep an eye on the guy in the green shirt in this clip. You can feel the extreme bursts of awkwardness fly through your screen every time he pulls out his phone. Kristi Noem even did a Ricky Bobby bit and genuinely didn’t know what to do with her hands!

Rob Crilly, the Chief U.S. Political Correspondent for the Daily Mail said he has “probably been to 100 rallies, give or take. Have never seen anything like tonight.” I have never been to a Trump rally, but I have covered the Trumpsperience since 2016 and I agree, this is a new frontier of madness he has slipped into. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this where an entire room is cringing and one man is as comfortable as can be.

To bring some kind of serious analysis to this development past “what the fuck,” I’ll tag in Matthew Remski, a journalist who writes about cults and Qanon, who wrote a thread explaining his interpretation of America’s premier cult leader eschewing a political rally to show off his Spotify playlist, and how it reminded him of a cult leader in a group he was in.

While this is a fundamentally silly story, there is a serious undercurrent here. All the absurdity above gets a lot less funny when you imagine it unfolding in the Oval Office. The sheer incompetence and general indifference to governance that Trump displays throughout this thirty-nine-minute DJ session is emblematic of how he would use his power. He is a narcissist of the highest order who will only govern according to his selfish priorities, and hatred is the animating principle of his political platform. He also looks like he’s losing his marbles, and this is yet another data point supporting that assertion. In a second Trump presidency, there will be no progress, only misery, and lots of hits from the 80s.

 
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