BASE AND DEBAUCHED:

[A]s Trump took the stage, the story transformed from dystopian fiction to absurdist farce.

It turned out that President Trump was not, in fact, set to appear in front of throngs of MAGA die-hards who were waiting for their dear leader while stirring a COVID-Kool-Aid. Instead he was about to appear before a half-empty arena and complain about people who are mean to him.

The Trump on display in Tulsa was not a strong man steeling himself for a crackdown against protesters while standing astride a silent majority of mask-eschewing followers with a death wish.

Instead, out from behind the curtain came a weak and whiny D-list Rodney Dangerfield, obsessed with minor slights and not getting enough respect from the Fake News Media that he claims to hate but seems to be kind of super into.

This is not to say that the speech was free of evil: He claimed to have asked that COVID-19 testing to be slowed down in the hopes his mismanagement wouldn't look as bad; he described the virus that has killed 120,000 Americans in 4 months (and counting) as "the sniffles"; and he repeatedly attacked Black Lives Matters protesters as violent thugs.

Yet these bromides felt gross but rote. Like a guy hitting his spots even after losing confidence in his routine, because he doesn't know any other material.

What Tulsa revealed was a disrobed Emperor Orangius. The man who once obsessed over his great poll numbers is down everywhere, by nearly double digits. The man who bragged every day about the economy is staring at 13 percent unemployment. The man who gloried in the throngs of packed auditoriums and expected a crowd so big that he would have to give a second performance at an outdoor venue stood in the middle of an arena surrounded by empty blue seats, having been thwarted by TikTok teens.

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