It was a day that ends in 'Y', so the odds were always decent that the President of the United States could be found in an arena somewhere, whipping his fans into a frenzy over immigrants and urban crime rates. It ain't subtle, folks. The world's most powerful man has decided to jump on top of the powder keg that is American society in the present day and start tossing off matches. He thinks this is a good way to get re-elected and stave off the consequences of what he's done. After all, if he leaves office, he could be indicted the next morning for any of crimes he has committed both before and since taking office. What is he willing to do to prevent that?

Donald Trump, American president, went to Cincinnati Thursday night, and it was always going to get ugly. It wasn't Send-Her-Back levels of fashy, but it wasn't nice either. Trump has scarcely even gestured towards being a president for all Americans since Inauguration Day, but now he spends his time attacking cities in his own country—whose residents are technically his constituents, whom he's nominally tasked with representing—as hellholes infested with vermin and crime. But before he got into all that, he had to show what a big, smart boy he is.

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Lol at how badly the big man bombs trying to walk back saying “Soviet Union” pic.twitter.com/BLnOhPzqIQ — Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) August 2, 2019

Needless to say, this is not an accurate account of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Is it too much to ask for the President of the United States to know that the Union was made up of more than a dozen countries, only one of which was Russia? Apparently so. But the real takeaway here is that Trump is pathologically incapable of admitting a mistake, to the point that he will go on some winding, embarrassing tangent to pretend this is all exactly what he meant to do all along, rather than just say, "Whoops! I meant Russia." An inability to admit and learn from your mistakes is not the best trait for a national leader, and neither is his bullshitter's talent for convincing himself his own bullshit is true as he's cooking it up.

But that was small fry compared to the main event. One of the American president's party tricks these days is to attack Baltimore, a city in the country he's president of that is surely struggling. Rather than take a look at the city's problems and consider how they might be remedied, he attacks black leaders who hail from there and dismisses the place as "infested." This is because he does not actually care about the conditions, or the residents, he just knows his fans want him to bludgeon Certain People from the podium. No wonder, then, that he did some Mad Libs crowd work to get a couple of places Baltimore is supposedly worse than.

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U.S. President Donald Trump compares Baltimore murder rate to Afghanistan’s. More from Trump's rally in Ohio: https://t.co/NMZmJt1YhE pic.twitter.com/3NmoFrgnDo — Reuters (@Reuters) August 2, 2019

"Afghanistan." Nice. What an empathetic way to look at the lives lost in both places. It's almost like he does not care about human beings who don't share his last name. Besides, he did say no human being would want to live in Baltimore, and that it was infested with rats. What is he saying about the human beings who very much do live there?

By the way, the Baltimore leader Trump has attacked ruthlessly in public—Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, who just happens to be investigating the president in his role as chairman of the House Oversight Committee—had his house broken into last Saturday. That's the same day Trump went after him by name on Twitter. Here's how the United States president reacted to that news.

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Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2019

This is the kind of "joke" someone delivers while leering at you. They're smirking, but not because it's funny. It is a message of power and cruelty—and of tacit approval.

Just in case you still think he genuinely cares about the policy decisions and other factors that have precipitated Baltimore's decline, by the way, there's this:

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Wow -- while his speech is being disrupted by a protester, Trump checks with someone in the audience to make sure Cincinnati has a Democratic mayor (you can hear this on the mic). When he's told it does, Trump repeatedly calls out, "Democrat mayor!" pic.twitter.com/aNgSMl61mN — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 1, 2019

He doesn't know a damn thing about Cincinnati. He doesn't actually care. It's just a piñata. It's got a "Democrat mayor"—the word, by the way, is "Democratic," at least for anyone whose brain isn't marinating in Rush Limbaugh diatribes—so he'll bash it. Urban area? Crime! Democrats! Infestation!

There was also time for some good-old-fashioned immigrant-bashing. Here's the United States president discussing the visa lottery system.

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This is Trump's conception of how the visa lottery works. His ignorance is stunning. pic.twitter.com/8CvmzRaqKd — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 2, 2019

Needless to say, this is not how the visa lottery system works. But again, reality isn't relevant. Once again, the only depiction of immigrants that the president offers—and that his supporters hear—is of murderers and criminals. Has he ever once told the story of a woman who came here with her young son fleeing violence in El Salvador? Of course not. It's all young, strapping men, streaming over the border to kill you, even if immigrants commit violent crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.

(By the way, a man named Frances Tiafoe was selected in the diversity visa program and moved to Maryland from Sierra Leone. He worked as a janitor at a tennis center and raised his son, Frances Jr., there. Now, 21 years old, Tiafoe is ranked 40th in the world in men's singles—higher than all but three other American men. Don't hold your breath waiting for the President of the United States to tell a story like that.)

The way you can tell things have really gone sideways is that holding up an "Immigrants Built This Country" sign at the president's rally is immediately identified as an act of protest and greeted by his fans with screaming vitriol and a physical altercation:

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Protestors interrupted President Trump's Cincinnati rally for approximately four minutes tonight.

Here's the moment: https://t.co/dn45gJmN3K pic.twitter.com/8mi3VR3Z8e — CSPAN (@cspan) August 2, 2019

I'm old enough to remember when folks at least pretended that the problem was illegal immigration. I can also remember when the idea this is a nation of immigrants was not a liberal position but, you know, a statement of fact. But part of pulling up the ladder behind you is disassociating yourself from your own immigrant experience. It's the dissonance of being a Real American.

Speaking of dissonance, the festivities concluded with a fitting spasm of contradiction. It's one we'll likely hear many times over the next year and a half.

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Trump ends his speech on a fittingly incoherent note.



"We are making America great again, and with your vote in 2020, we will keep America great!" pic.twitter.com/DOFcDpMwQq — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 2, 2019

America must be made great, but it also must be kept great. It is great and not great all at once. It is whatever the guy needs it to be right now. Don't ask too many questions. The details aren't important. But one thing's for sure: only some people are allowed to criticize it. If the Wrong People complain, they're told to go back where they came from. Maybe we should send them back. Are they the ones ruining it? Are they the reason it's Not Great? We're got to make it great.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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