The Season Finale

Last night:



He was actually in Cape Girardeau.

Two hours later, somebody finally told him.




He pulled out all the stops for his last midterm rally in Girardeau, bringing along Ivanka, Hannity, Sarah Sanders, Jeanine Pirro, Kellyanne Conway, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, Rush Limbaugh and Lee Greenwood.

Hannity is, uh, "interviewing" Trump backstage. (He is reciting Trump's talking points to Trump.)

Trump: "We have a barbed wire wall...highest level...a lot of digging going on, a lot of trenching."

I told you he was going to call the barbed wire a wall.

Trump repeats his lie about how he's gotten three sums of $1.6 billion for the wall. He says he is imprisoning and deporting MS-13 members. He says he likes the deporting better.

To Hannity, Trump repeats his usual lie about how he had 32,000 people at his 2016 election-eve rally in Michigan, where the capacity was 4,200 and the crowd outside wasn't close to 28,000. To Ingraham, he repeats his usual lie about how he was the one who got Vets Choice passed.

Rush Limbaugh is speaking at the rally before Trump. He says this is "the night of a lifetime."

Limbaugh lying: "Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia. Hillary Clinton rigged an election." There are cheers and Lock Her Up chants.

They'll never get over the fact that Hillary Clinton is not president.

Limbaugh says it's not racist, or sexist (?), to not want the caravan, as "it's an issue of law." Limbaugh tells the Trump supporters that anger at Trump is actually "anger at you." Limbaugh called Trump indefatigable. He then explained that this means Trump does not get tired.

Anger? How about condescension?  Are they okay with that?

Lee Greenwood did a live rendition of God Bless the USA, Trump's standard rally intro song, as Trump stood beside him and clapped and such. This crowd is especially raucous. Trump has stepped away from the mic to bask in the cheers. Trump claims that it was a "surprise" that Lee Greenwood would be singing live at this rally. His campaign announced this on Sunday.

Trump calls Sean Hannity, who said he would not be a special guest at this rally, to the stage. Hannity's first words: "By the way all those people in the back are fake news." Hannity is now giving a candidate-style pro-Trump speech from the stage. He claims he had no idea Trump would be inviting him up. Trump's campaign announced that Hannity would be a special guest.

Trump then praises Fox host Jeanine Pirro at length: "There's a woman on Saturday night that treats us very, very well. And she does it with love and with passion for the country -- not for me, it's not a passion for me, it's a passion for the country." Fox host Jeanine Pirro, shouting hoarsely, tells people they need to get everyone out to vote for Donald Trump. These are people who "interview" the president. I don't think we should call them interviews.

Trump says that the media will say the election was about him if Republicans do bad and say it wasn't about him if Republicans do well. He then boasts about how many cameras are on him. "That's the Academy Awards," he says.

Trump on Ivanka: "From day one, she was just smart. Even though she's my daughter." He adds, "Nah. Don't worry. I'm smart also. And we're smart." "I know all of the elites. They're not very smart in many cases. They have a lot of hatred in their hearts. I don't know about you, but many of you went to better schools than they did...we have better houses, homes, boats."

He's done that before.  Do people in Cape Girardeau think they're part of that "we"?  They may have fishing boats.

"We are the super-elites. We are the super-elites," Trump says after telling supporters in Cape Girardeau, Missouri that they make more money than society's supposed elites.

Trump calls up Sarah Huckabee Sanders. This is like the season finale.

On the eve of election night 2018, Trump is recounting election night 2016 again. "And we won Florida. And we won South Carolina and North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And then, and we did win Indiana, that's for sure. And we won Ohio, remember?"

"We opened up Canada with our new deal, for the first time. They like us. Great deal." (Almost all products are traded tariff-free under NAFTA.)

Trump repeats his usual story about how the hand of CNN's John King began to tremble as he touched his magic wall when it started turning very red. I've seen no evidence that this ever happened.

Trump: "Don't worry I'm not gonna mention CNN's name...I won't mention NBC or ABC or CBS. I'm not gonna mention, I'm not. I'm not gonna mention that you treat us very unfairly."

Trump's closing messages so far: - I am more elite than the elites - The media is bad - The 2016 election was very good

Trump has called up Kellyanne Conway, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel and Sarah Sanders together, creating a visual of himself surrounded by women. "I always said that women were smarter than men," he says.

Trump on how he is a "friend" of Xi Jinping: "He doesn't like me as much lately, but that's OK. He'll be back."

Trump repeats his warning that Democrats will tank people's 401(k)s and then wives and husbands will not think their spouse is an investment genius anymore, as they allegedly do under him. "She was screaming at him, cursing at him...now all of a sudden he's a genius."


Trump reminds people that Hillary Clinton called some Trump supporters "deplorables" two years ago. He adds, "The Deplorables are the greatest people on earth. They're the smartest."

Someone in the crowd is having a medical situation, so there is a pause. "CNN SUCCCKS," someone yells into the silence, and there are cheers. After a bunch of heckle-yelling, the Trump crowd sings Amazing Grace as the ill person is attended to.

The Greatest Show on Earth.  Right here in Missouri.

Trump claims that "the accuser of Brett Kavanaugh," singular, admitted she made up the story. The person who made this admission was an obscure accuser, not Blasey Ford, but Trump leaves open the possibility that it was her.

"He hung in there, and I hung in there too, by the way. I hung in there too...false accusations. False accusations. They want to ruin a man or a woman. Ruin a man. And it was headed up all by the Democrats."

What was that "or a woman" about?  He's been making sure he adds "women" whenever he talks about men lately, but what a bizarre - and baffling - place to do it.

Trump, on election eve in Missouri, is now lying about the Vietnam lie of not-running Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, falsely claiming Blumenthal claimed he was in Da Nang (never said that) and was charging up hills into battle (never said that).

If there was a thread, he's lost it.

Trump repeats his regular false claim that Democrats "have a big advantage in the Electoral College." This is pure nonsense.

And meaningless in midterms.

Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley is speaking now. He says that Trump didn't get elected because of the Russians, it was "because of the MISSOURIans." Hawley says McCaskill reminds him of Hillary Clinton. There is a Lock Her Up chant. Hawley, speaking at a Donald Trump rally, says Claire McCaskill has a "phony foundation."

Trump getting confused: "The Democrat plan would obliterate Obamacare (he meant to say Medicare). It will also, which is good, but leave the bad parts behind." He never admits he has misspoken, simply strains to make the sentence make sense.

Trump lies as usual that he has repealed the estate tax, though he has merely raised the threshold for it: "You now have no death tax to pay. You now have no estate tax to pay."

Missourians in Cape Girardeau have no estates.

Trump is doing his usual highly misleading spiel about how the estate tax is a particular problem for small family farms. Per the Tax Policy Center, a mere 80 farms and small businesses were among the 5,460 estates likely to pay the tax in 2017, before Trump's tax law.

Trump tells a sir version of his Choice lie, saying he came up with this independently, thought "I am the most brilliant human being that has ever lived," then was told they'd already been pushing for 44 years, but "I'm the only one that got it passed." It was passed in 2014.

Trump tells his story about how he avoided the phone calls of foreign leaders who wanted to lobby him not to move the embassy to Jerusalem. When he called them back later, he says he said, "Mr. King, Mr. Queen, Mr. Whatever..." Mr. Queen.

Trump has concluded, and we have arrived at Election Day. GOOD NIGHT.

Three cheers for Daniel Dale.



Dale doesn't actually go to these rallies, he watches live streams; but yes, the strength to take them in is commendable.

And today, Trump has a clear schedule, aka a full day of "executive time" to watch Fox News, tweet shit and make his list of who he's going to fire tomorrow.




UPDATE:  Here's the bit about being better and having more stuff than the "elites".  It's great.  Even the diehards behind him don't know how to act.