12 September—Even as Iran, pollsters, and he himself continue to embarrass America’s con man-in-chief, you’ve got to hand it to Donald Trump, however reluctantly, because he certainly knows how to work a crowd. But isn’t that what con men and demagogues do?

Take the brilliant way Trump capped off the asinine Trumpublican convention in Dallas’s half-empty American Airlines Center a couple of days ago. (Trump ascribed all the empty seats to hordes waiting to relieve themselves, by the way.) It was a typically long-winded and incoherent but none the less virtuosic performance incorporating flattery, hyperbole, incitement, outright lies, self-glorification, and self-gratification.

You can read the full transcript (with audience reaction) at this link: https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-closing-remarks-rnc-convention-dallas-september-10-2026/

Here are some choice li(n)es, presented without comment:

“But less than two years ago, the American people gave us a mandate to save America. And in 19 months, I’ve delivered on every single promise I made and I think I delivered on far more.”

“They turned our cities into scenes of death and misery, murder, poverty, and destruction and made America a laughingstock. We were a laughingstock all over the world. But we took that dark age of America and turned it into the golden age of America. We delivered the largest tax cuts in American history, the largest regulation cuts in American history, the largest investment in our military, in the history of our country, and made America the energy and military superpower of the world.”

“I built almost 2,000 miles of wall and created the strongest, most secure border that America has ever seen. And it was just announced, you saw that, that we achieved the lowest level of violent crime in 125 years since the year 1900.”

“We will not have men playing in women’s sports. And if the radical left Democrats and communists win this election, they’re promising to confiscate your wealth, tax your social security, abolish no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. They’re going to defund the police, giving voting rights and welfare to 25 million illegal aliens, destroy Texas Oil & Gas, thereby doubling and tripling your taxes, have men playing in women’s sports, transgender for everybody, the mutilization of your children, and set loose criminals to rob, rape, and kill like we had just two years ago.”

“What we went through, we went through hell. If we win the midterms, we will, on the other hand, provide a, let’s call it Trump dividend, $5,000 for every adult citizen in our country. And we can do that because our country has never done better. We’re taking in trillions, trillions of dollars. There’s never been any country, not even close, that’s come anywhere near.”

“And we will make our very incredible, they tried getting it, some presidents. Most presidents didn’t try because they never had a shot. Most Favored Nation prescription drug discounts, we’re going to make it permanent in law. We will pass the No Invasion of Our Country Act. We don’t want any more invasions of our country.”

“And with JD and everybody else, we will win the war on fraud. You know, we’ve got billions and billions of dollars already in our coffers of money that we caught on fraud. It’s going to be, I would bet it will be over a trillion dollars by the time we’re finished, over a trillion dollars. And we will end, and it started with this and we’re gonna end it, no cash bail.”

“Get it done. So when I’m on the ticket, everybody comes to vote. We have, you know, we won Texas three times, the highest vote in the history of Texas for any race. And by the way, you’ve got to elect Ken Paxton. . . . He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas. He was the greatest attorney general in the history of our country . . . and he deserves to go to the United States Senate.”

“I’m not on the ticket. You gotta pretend. I’m not on the ticket. You gotta do me a big, the biggest favor you’ve ever done me. You’ve gotta do this for me. You’ve gotta pretend I’m on the ticket. I’m on the ticket. I’m on the ticket. He’s on the ticket. Pretend I’m on the ticket. Because this is going to turn out to be one of the most important elections.”

The incredible pledge:

“I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. They never, there’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3^rd or we are going to vote before that.”

“Whoa. Now I know. Now, I’d say just about everybody would scream. You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. You know that. Okay? You go to hell. And I don’t want that to happen to you, so please go and vote because together we will defeat the communists. We will reject, and that’s what they are. They’re not socialists. They’re not Democrats. They’re communists. We will reject these radical left lunatics. We will demolish the extremist, fanatics, lunatics and criminals who want to destroy our country. They want to destroy the country.”

“I, I came up with this little few words, Make America Great Again. That’s what I want. That’s all I want. And we are making America far greater than anybody in this room thought would be po-. Think of it. $22 trillion coming into this country when a record was three trillion many years ago by a totally different country, 22 trillion.”

Trump also claimed in Dallas, as elsewhere, that Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007, had been a “great friend.” The truth, however, may be summed up by Pavarotti’s widow and daughter demanding that Trump stop using a recording of “Nessun Dorma” at rallies, insisting that the late tenor’s lifelong values of brotherhood and human rights were “entirely incompatible” with Trump’s . . .