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The power and the perils of Trump’s ‘flow state’
The former president’s latest town hall was a spectacle even by the standards of modern American politics.
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Republican presidential nominee and former US president Donald Trump gesturing at the end of a rally on Oct 19.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Jemima Kelly
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For 30 minutes straight, Donald Trump stood on stage as a typically incongruent selection of his favourite songs – from his beloved YMCA by the Village People, to Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor, to Rufus Wainwright’s version of Hallelujah – blared out from the speakers. Sometimes he stood gazing at the crowd; sometimes he waved and pointed; sometimes he broke into his signature “swinging hips and clenched fists” dance.
Adore him or abhor him – and it does tend to be one or the other – there could be no doubt that the second half of Trump’s town hall in Pennsylvania last week was a surreal and quite unprecedented spectacle, even by the outlandish standards of 21st-century American politics.
