It’s no secret that I’m not a personal fan of former president Donald Trump — but through the years I feel I’ve been mostly fair to him, his presidency, his accomplishments and his failures. But something dawned on me during his friendly Fox town hall with Sean Hannity Thursday night — which wasn’t really a town hall, due to not being live and no audience questions until the last ten minutes of the hour. I’ve been critical of Trump and have praised him, but I’ve rarely ever been bored by him — and that was my impression coming away from his first real sit-down with Iowa voters.
What struck me about this “2024-facing” version of Trump is how he cares about telling stories from the past, and his past presidency, and is not wrapped up in the current conversations happening throughout the country. There is a path for Trump to run on the “Do you miss me yet?” platform, but he couldn’t stay focused long enough even during this hour to say what he would do going forward.
The audience interview was more of a rehash of Trump’s greatest hits, past conversations with world leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping, the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the election of 2016. It felt more like a live reading of a presidential memoir; what was lacking was any vision moving forward. There was no present and there was no future presented.
No: Trump in Iowa offered the take of an elderly father just happy to have company over so he can tell his stories again. But America is a very different country to the one that elected Trump in 2016. Hannity did his best to lead Trump towards the conversations the right is currently having about school curriculums, Critical Race Theory and trans athlete participation in women’s sports. Trump guided it back to his claimed credit of overturning Roe v. Wade and not much else.
The audience, largely made up of Iowa GOP primary voters, applauded him on his hit parade — but some looked outright bored themselves and seemed to be begging Trump to give them something, anything to latch onto going forward. The former president isn’t offering much in that arena, yet.
When one participant finally got his chance at a question, one of only two that was asked, Trump was asked about what he would do to tackle inflation moving forward. Trump then talked about how much he rebuilt the military during his previous presidency.
Trump is apparently looking to run on “Memberberrying.” Selling nostalgia may work for some Republican voters, but to me he simply looked out of touch to where the country currently is. A lot of people will check out if more of the same is all that’s on offer.
Voters at large don’t want another airing of the personal grievances of someone who felt targeted and wronged throughout his presidency (he was); they want to move forward. A sense of entitlement and victimhood played a large role in Hillary Clinton’s rejection in 2016.
If Trump hopes to succeed in this presidential bid, he will have to be more than someone who thinks it’s his turn again to sit around and tell more stories. If that’s what he wants, he should retire to write his memoirs — but you can tell that he still loves the audience, and having an audience. Bad news for Republicans hoping for a clearly articulated vision of the future.
