Scott Feschuk

Annotating Trump: Beyond crazy musings? The semi-crazy.

In which we parse a tangent turned diatribe, which was interrupted by a second and third tangent inside the original tangent

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga., Monday, Feb. 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Donald Trump at a rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga., on Monday, Feb. 29, 2016. (Andrew Harnik, AP)

The bar for crazy has been set so high by Donald Trump that many of his semi-crazy remarks now go unreported. Happily, given my addiction to watching live coverage of Trump rallies, I am able to share some of his musings from speeches this week in Alabama and Georgia. Trump’s words are in bold.

[Reporters] are so terrible. Twenty per cent of them are good. Eighty per cent of them are bad. Forty per cent of them are disgusting. It’s official: Not even the strict confines of math can hope to shackle Donald J. Trump.

We’re winning with old, we’re winning with young, we’re winning with highly educated, we’re winning with a little bit less than highly educated, which is okay, I love you. Trump will embrace any demographic so long as it has embraced him. We’re winning with bedwetters, fatties and people who clip their fingernails on the bus!

Ten thousand emails, 20,000, 40,000 emails. How the hell do you do so many emails? Does anyone do emails like that? This rant about Hillary Clinton serves as a reminder that Trump is almost 70—and, in some ways, just a high-octane version of the cantankerous grandparent many of us grew up knowing. Faxes make no sense! You can’t send a picture of words over the phone! AN IMMIGRANT STOLE MY SLIPPERS!

More from Feschuk: The Republican party goes Dumpster diving

Education is so important. All you kids out there—just go and do something you like and listen to your parents. But education is so important. You heard the future president, kids. Go major in something useful like “School” or “Class” or “Whatever.” That’ll learn China.

Trump explains how he would have negotiated with Iran: You walk in and you say, “Fellas.” Great negotiators, the Persians. The Persians are great negotiators. And you walk in and you say, very nicely…  At this point, Trump went off on a tangent, which led to a diatribe, which was interrupted by a second and third tangent inside the original tangent. It was like Inception, but with multiple levels of xenophobia instead of dreams. He never made it back to the “Persian” story.

In Alabama, Trump speaks outdoors at a high school stadium: We have 4,000 people [outside the venue] that they won’t let in. That’s so sad. I would have let them in. I mean, why is there a fire hazard when you’re standing outside? There’s no building! We’re outside! Let ’em in, Mr. Fire Marshal, whoever the hell you are. The best part? The crowd of 20,000-plus was instantly transformed into an angry mob. Jeers, shouts, fist-waving: They craved marshal blood! How dare you infringe on our God-given right as Americans to be trampled to death while listening to a blustering hairpile??

More from Feschuk: How Donald Trump would read a Christmas classic 

During the outdoor speech, Trump is distracted by something in the sky, presumably a plane or helicopter: Uh oh, it’s ISIS! Get ’em down! Trump then forms his index finger and thumb into a gun and pretends to blast the object out of the sky. Yes, this actually happened. Oh, I’d shoot that guy down so fast your head would spin. This boast comes from a man whose record of military service consists in its entirety of multiple deployments to breakfast with Cap’n Crunch.

You go up to New Hampshire and the first thing they always tell me about is: They have a tremendous heroin problem. Tremendous. And it doesn’t seem right, because the beautiful trees, and the beautiful… I mean, everything’s beautiful. I used to be addicted to coke but then I saw a petunia. Thanks, President Trump!

I always say: The American Dream is dead, which it is. The American Dream is dead. This is a weird thing for a presidential candidate to always say.

But we’re going to make [the American Dream] bigger and better and stronger than ever before. He’s reanimating it! Folks, you’re going to want to watch for the Zombie American Dream, soon to be aimlessly staggering alongside a white picket fence near you.

Trump winds down his outdoor speech: You’re going to remember this gorgeous, beautiful, beautiful evening. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Everything’s perfect: temperature, a little windy, I could have left the hat off but …  it’s a little bit windy, I figured why should my hair be blowing all over the place? Reagan had “It’s Morning Again in America.” Obama had “Yes, We Can.” Trump has “I Could Have Left the Hat Off, But …”

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