I attended two Trump rallies at the same North Carolina site, two years apart. Now, he is more desperate and diminished

Two years ago, I paid a visit to Wilmington, North Carolina, a few weeks ahead of the midterm elections, ostensibly to cover the state’s Senate race, but also hear from Donald Trump.

A lot has changed since then.

Then, Trump had endorsed Ted Budd, a backbencher Congressman with no name, to replace Richard Burr, one of the senators who voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6.

Of course, the rally at the Wilmington Aero Center barely focused on Budd, or any other Republicans for that matter. Instead, he made a dramatic scene after landing before taking the stage and meandering for the better part of an hour and a half.

This came shortly after the FBI had executed a search warrant on his Florida home in Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the classified documents and he faced a new lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James, whom at the rally he dubbed “Peekaboo James,” a non-sensical and likely racist nickname.

Nonetheless, Trump had the crowd in Wilmington enthralled in 2022. Toward the end, he played ominous music as he spoke in an almost sort of prayer that had the crowd completely compelled.

Two years almost to the day, Trump returned to the Aero Center, this time as a candidate. However, Trump seemed much more diminished as he seeks to return to the White House.

To boot, Trump’s overtures seem much more desperate and are a sign that as he struggles to beat Kamala Harris, he does not stand on the same footing he once did.

Losing Biden as a contrast seems like it knocked the wind out of Trump’s sails. In 2022, and in truth, in most of Trump’s rallies since he left the White House, he mostly focused on Biden and would open his rallies with a supercut of Biden stumbling over his words and or seeming weak.

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