Anti-climax

Trump ends on an anti-climax

By Ben Schreckinger

Donald Trump ended his campaign for the presidency on an anti-climax, flying from a raucous arena filled with smoke and lasers in New Hampshire to finish his night here in a convention center lit with fluorescent lights, portions of the floor left empty as his supporters shuffled off to bed before his final stump speech wrapped just after 1 a.m.

He was preceded onstage here by his running mate Mike Pence, and by Ted Nugent, a shock rocker and the recent author of an anti-Semitic rant.

“We don’t need Jay Z or Beyonce,” Trump opened his remarks. “We don’t need Jon Bon Jovi. We don’t need Lady Gaga. All we need is great ideas to make America great again.”

In his final day of campaigning, Trump remained true to form, comparing America’s inner cities to “hell,” spending much of his energy on feuds with people who are not Hillary Clinton and claiming at venues that were not full that thousands of supporters were stuck outside dying to get in.

Trump continued to claim that the country’s murder rate is at a 45-year-high, which it is not, complained that the media will not repeat that falsehood, and marveled at a child’s rubber mask of his own face.

From Trump’s crowds came cries that Clinton is a “demon” and a “witch,” cries that she is “evil” and “sick,” and calls for her jailing and assassination.

In Michigan, the final stop of his whirlwind 17-month tour, Trump did not have his mind on endings. “It’s going be the very beginning of the new adventure,” he said. “The new adventure is making America great again.”

But the prospect of defeat had not vanished from his mind. “If we don't win, this will be single greatest waste of time, energy and money in my life,” he said. “We have to win.”

And if the hour had grown late, Trump still time to get in a favorite line.

“I just want to ask you one question if you don’t mind at one o’clock in the morning. Who is going to pay for the wall?” Mexico, the crowd responded.

Soon after that, Trump released his crowd, telling them, “Go to bed. Go to bed right now, and get up and vote.”

Before his last-minute trip to Michigan, Trump campaigned Monday night at the 11,000-seat New Hampshire State University arena — decked out for occasion with smoke machines and lasers —in Manchester, the site of the primary eve rally in February where Trump locked up his first win and called Ted Cruz a “pussy.”

This time, he aimed the name-calling across the aisle. “Massachusetts is represented by Pocahontas right?” Trump said, employing the nickname he uses to deride Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s contested claim to Native American heritage. “She is a terrible human being.”

“I hear a very great baseball player’s going to challenge her,” he added, plugging Curt Schilling, who recently joined Breitbart and even more recently described a shirt that called for lynching journalists “awesome.”

In New Hampshire, Trump was introduced by Pence and joined briefly on stage by his children and their spouses

Following a report in the New York Times that Ivanka Trump is seeking to minimize public association with her father out of a desire to protect her own brand, Trump asked his elder daughter to say a few words on behalf of the family, prompting a look of surprise. She said she had not been expecting to speak at the event and promised supporters that her father will “never ever let you down.”

Trump said he clinched Tom Brady’s vote and obtained permission to share the news with the world. He also read aloud a note he said was from Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick that congratulated him on a “tremendous” campaign in which he came out “beautifully” despite being maligned by “slanted and negative media” — terms and themes remarkably similar to Trump’s own speaking style.

At one point, Trump took a swig from a water bottle, and then poured out some of the rest of the water in front of the stage.

When Trump attacked President Barack Obama for campaigning for Clinton, a group of raucous young men behind the press pen called out, “Lock him up too! You suck, Obama” and “They should share a cell” and “Piece of shit.”

Earlier Monday, Trump campaigned in Florida, Pennsylvania, and the airy and placid confines of the J.S. Dorton arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he took a contemplative tone. “Can you imagine having Hillary for four years?” Trump asked. “I’m being serious about that.”