ANALYSIS — Donald Trump did more than perform his greatest hits Saturday night in Arizona, revving up his loyalists with claims of anti-white discrimination and contending that no U.S. election is legitimate unless Republicans count the votes.
The former president is the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, meaning his first rally of 2022 portends a potential campaign based — even more than his first two White House bids — on unfounded conspiracy theories and volatile claims about race.
Despite headlines about Trump “reaffirming” his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen by Democrats, even by his own standards, his remarks at his Florence, Ariz., rally went to politically and culturally dark places.
There were the usual claims about a massive crowd, this time in a rural prison town: “A person that comes here and has crowds that go further than any eye can see — there’s nobody that can see the end of this crowd.” Moments later, a Newsmax television camera displayed several rows of empty seats and people appearing to slip out early.
And Trump stuck to parts of his prepared remarks in between ad-libbed attacks on President Joe Biden, Democrats and even Republicans — when he wasn’t mocking his staff for failing to better secure his teleprompter on a breezy night. He read aloud sections ripped almost verbatim from the email statements his post-presidency office frequently blasts out.
But there was plenty new in this rally. Here are three debut items.
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