Trump Preaches Gospel of Grievance at Sweltering Post-Conviction Rally

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s standing in MAGA world has been somewhat shaky of late, owing to her doomed effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson in defiance of Donald Trump’s warnings. One way to get back in his good graces? Compare him to Jesus Christ, as she did during a Las Vegas rally Sunday. “The Democrats and the fake news media want to constantly talk about, ‘Oh, President Trump is a convicted felon,’” the Georgia representative ranted to rally-goers. “Well, you want to know something? The man that I worship is also a convicted felon—and he was murdered on a Roman cross!”

That introduction set the tone for Trump’s first major post-conviction campaign event, which featured rhetoric as overheated as the hundred-plus degree desert temperatures Sunday. Indeed, if this was the church of Trump, he preached a gospel of grievance, inveighing against a range of targets—but especially immigrants, whom he accused of “changing the fabric of our country.”

“We’re not going to let them destroy our country,” Trump told supporters, as he tried to both court the Latino vote in the swing state, where he leads in polls, and to outflank his opponent from the right. “It’s bullshit what he signed,” Trump said of President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on immigration, which has been criticized by some Democrats for being too harsh and by Republicans for not being harsh enough.

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit,” Trump’s crowd chanted back in response.

It was familiar demagoguery from Trump, who has sought to make the border a defining issue of the 2024 race. “All we saw today was a wannabe dictator spouting his trademark hatred for our community,” Maca Casado, the Biden campaign’s Hispanic media director, said Sunday. And yet, polling suggests there’s a receptive audience for his hardline approach to immigration: 70 percent of registered voters in a CBS News survey released Sunday said they believed border crossings would decrease under Trump, and about 60 percent expressed some support for the kind of mass, deportation program the former president has proposed. Biden’s own restrictive executive order also received significant, bipartisan support in the poll. But Trump and his allies have continued to paint Biden as “weak” on the issue: “It’s ineffective,” Trump said of the executive order, lamenting to the Nevada crowd that the state had become a “dumping ground” for migrants.

Trump painted a dystopian picture of the country—as one suffering an “invasion” at the border— while claiming that he and his supporters are being unfairly targeted by Democrats. Convicted January 6 insurrectionists were “warriors” and “victims,” Trump said, arguing that he was personally “indicted…over nothing.” “They opened up a whole new box,” Trump said of his conviction and three other indictments. “They have weaponized the Department of Justice.”

For MAGA true believers, the rally was an opportunity to “worship” their leader, as Nevada GOP Chair Michael McDonald put it: The heat, McDonald said, proved that they will “walk through hell to put Donald J. Trump back in the White House.” Still, the sweltering temperatures proved too much for some attendees, who began filtering out as Trump ran through his greatest hits. To them, Trump had a message: “I don’t want anybody going on me,” he said at one point. “We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.”

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