One of the audience members reacts to Trump’s speech in Montana: “Today’s Democrat Party is held hostage by haters, absolute haters, left-wing haters.” pic.twitter.com/wHj8ZWHvHG — David Choi (@choibboy) September 7, 2018

With all the patently ludicrous things Donald Trump says on a daily basis, you’d think that it would be more common for the people around him to react with the appropriately humorous level of bafflement. Instead, a bunch of people insist he’s “telling it like it is” (very difficult when you’re a compulsive liar) and have decided he should be their leader, but that was not the case with the crowd directly behind him at his rally in Billings, Montana last night.

The crowd behind Trump at his rallies usually seems carefully selected, since they know those will be the people visible in video of the event, but it seems that their extreme vetting wasn’t quite thorough enough this time around. The two people directly behind Trump for a portion of the event appeared to clearly be there for the express purpose of providing a visual commentary track mocking everything he said.

As you can see in the video above, as well as several others, the mysterious American hero behind him in the plaid shirt spent his time in the spotlight pulling his best Winona Ryder impression.

There’s a bunch of clips of him reacting to Trump’s rantings floating around, like when Trump falsely asserted that he turned around economic numbers that were getting worse, or his priceless face as Trump claimed the popular vote is easier to win than the Electoral College:

I’ll pay his appearance fee anytime! pic.twitter.com/JsOGEAoaHP — Katie Moeser (@IamKatieMoe) September 7, 2018

(And, once again, the reason Trump gives for Clinton’s loss, one too many believe even on the left, is false in several ways.)

One of my personal favorites, though, is this one, wherein he emphatically mouths, “Have you?” after Trump says he and his team have “picked up a lot of support”:

this was one of my favorites ‘we’ve picked up a lot of support’ plaid shirt guy ‘HAVE YOU!??’ pic.twitter.com/omM7i8zwPh — Katie Moeser (@IamKatieMoe) September 7, 2018

The woman next to him was clearly in on the whole thing, and at one point, when Trump is lashing out at the press and leading his crowd to do the same, she says, “Wow,” and then turns to him and says, “That’s horrible”:

here she is 😮 pic.twitter.com/yRj5j0Svta — Katie Moeser (@IamKatieMoe) September 7, 2018

It’s really the perfect set of reactions to a speech in which Trump claimed that his ability to speak extemporaneously for an hour proves his mental health. We’re far past the point where it’s become hackneyed to point out that Trump’s rambling rants say the exact opposite about his state of mind, but these priceless crowd reactions are exactly the real-world juxtaposition needed to make that point without even directly addressing it at all.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and Trump’s team eventually figured out what was going on and removed our political Statler and Waldorf from the camera’s field of view:

Weirdest thing just happened at Trump rally in Montana. The guy in plaid shirt behind Trump must not hv been cheering enough so a woman walked up and asked him to move and She took his spot #inners #maddow #LastWord pic.twitter.com/pTOq2kBwgb — Kikkay (@NikkisBubble) September 7, 2018

But wait. There’s more. Musical-chair #TrumpRally prop reshuffling. Cant help but wonder if Trump ever watched the 1957 classic film, “A Face In The Crowd?” Because he copied Andy Griffith’s “Lonesome” Rhodes character’s best lines last evening

🎥 https://t.co/ppRLDZtjdc pic.twitter.com/ZqeNEv3Hya — ScanMyPhotos 🎞📀💝 (@ScanMyPhotos) September 7, 2018

Don’t worry, though. Trump’s more than capable of making a fool of himself all on his own, thank you very much:

What happened here when President Trump tried twice to pronounce “anonymous”? pic.twitter.com/nwSNnQuKfm — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 7, 2018

(via Twitter, featured image: screengrab)

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