Reimagining Trump Rally 1.0 To Win in November

An Interactive Jumbotron to "Show" Not "Tell"

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Reimagining Trump Rally 1.0 To Win in November

Since 2016, Donald Trump’s more than 600 rallies have built an impregnable Republican base.  With less than 90 days to Election Day – and less than a month before early voting begins in key battlegrounds like Pennsylvania -- now is the time to quickly reimagine, retool, and reposition Trump Rally 1.0 to woo the relatively small number of swing voters who will ultimately determine the election outcome. 

Roughly half of a Trump rally speech is scripted red meat for the Trump base.  The other half is often lyrical and humorous Trump improvisations on the news of the day.  Throw in Trump’s playful (and sometimes brutal) eviscerations of his opponent (or whoever may have wronged him) and a Trump Rally 1.0 has always been a fast-moving feast for rallygoers and TV networks alike. 

President Trump doesn’t need feasts now.  He needs votes, and the current rally formula is simply not sufficiently focused on the very stark policy differences between him and Kamala Harris that will swing voters in key battleground states.  Instead, when Trump attacks Harris personally rather than on policy, Harris’ support among swing voters rises, particularly among women.

Let’s reimagine, then, a Trump Rally 2.0 as my old boss takes the podium at his next rally.  After a big welcome to the (always) massive crowd and his obligatory recognition of the local dignitaries and political candidates he has endorsed, the former president immediately begins   entering into an interactive Jumbotron “policy dialogue” with Kamala Harris.

Trump’s goal is to expose both the radical, and often incompetent and inexperienced, elements of Kamala Harris’ policies.  Yet, in this interactive experience, instead of telling his rally audience that Kamala supports an open border, defunding the police, defracking Pennsylvania, men competing in women’s sports, or higher corporate taxes, Trump just shows Harris expressing and revealing these stark differences in her own words on the Jumbotrons throughout the arena and on the TV sets of audiences watching the rally live.   

Through such simulated interactions, once Kamala’s words are played and showed, Trump then offers his side of the policy equation, relates Kamala’s policy to one of the many current crises facing this country, and, most importantly, Trump offers a set of concrete solutions.  

As a second and synergistic Trump innovation, and to further boost the policy content of the rallies, Trump could also feature video clips from former, and perhaps future, Trump advisers and Cabinet officials offering details about the many specific policy actions President Trump plans take to bring inflation under control, secure the border, bring peace to Ukraine and the Middle East and so on.  And this suggests a third innovation.

Suppose that before each rally, Trump holds a press conference with select advisors on the issue du jour.  For example, Ric Grenell on foreign policy, Robert O’Brien on national security, former United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on trade and tariffs,  former Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on fracking, Tom Homan and Stephen Miller on the current border chaos, and so on.

As still a  fourth and further synergy, Trump might also intersperse his remarks with video clips from American citizens harmed by the policies that have been implemented by the Harris-Biden White House.  For example, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump might introduce a video clip montage from workers in the fracking patch who have lost their jobs.  Then, in classic Trump style, these workers might be brought on at the end of the speech to join his policy advisers and the president on stage in a kind of final “Traveling Road Show” bow like you see at the end of every Broadway production. 

Retooling and repositioning Trump Rally 1.0 to incorporate these innovations would be EASY!  Jumbotron and video screens are abundant in every arena Trump will play at, Trump’s speechwriters Vince Haley and Ross Worthington can easily incorporate the appropriate cues and language to simulate the proposed interactions, and there is a political cornucopia of video clips that expose both Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz for the woke, radical, and very dangerous politicians that they are.

It would be equally easy to schedule press conferences prior to rallies, and Trump has no shortage of policy advisors to call upon to join him at the press conferences and record video clips for the interactive rally speeches.

With this interactive Jumbotron speak, Trump can have equal fun skewing Harris’ male running mate Tim Walz.  Here, Trump can choose from any number of TV clips in which “Tampon Tim” supports feminine napkins in boys’ bathrooms; Cuomo-style, senior killing lockdowns as Governor of Minnesota during COVID; letting Minneapolis burn during the 2020 riots, or committing unconscionable “Stolen Valor” as Walz abandoned his fellow soldiers on their way to the Iraq war. 

As a final innovation – really more of a courtesy and a strategy – Trump appearances at his rallies must always start on time at five after the hour in prime time and end promptly in 55 minutes.  Why?

Trump rallies offer millions of dollars in free media, and if TV producers can count on precision timing, they will be much more inclined to cover the rally.  When Trump goes long, he not only squanders precious time and energy he will need for the home stretch spring.  He runs the very real risk of going off message and upsetting the whole rally apple cart.  Never is the admonition that less is more than in this Trump Rally 2.0 context. 

AND, to make sure rally goers get their “money’s worth,” policy advisors and politician dignitaries can warm up the crowd in the preceding hour in the same fashion as the tightly scripted and highly successful RNC convention.

The great Duke Ellington once said, “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”  Trump Rally 2.0 may well be one of the best ways to reach those swing voters my old boss needs in this home stretch to win on November 5.

Peter Navarro served for four years in the Trump White House as a senior presidential advisor. His most recent book The New MAGA Deal offers an unofficial “Deplorables Guide” to the Trump 2024 Policy Platform.