FLORENCE, UNITED STATES (AFP) – Donald Trump delivered a crowd-pleasing speech to thousands of adoring supporters in Arizona on Saturday, insisting yet again that he won the 2020 United States (US) presidential election.
Some of the faithful had arrived in the area days in advance from as far away as Florida or Texas, waiting to hear the former president trot out a familiar list of grievances.
Their patience was soon rewarded.
“We are done having our lives controlled by politicians in Washington. We are done with the mandates,” he said, in reference to rules brought in to control the coronavirus pandemic.
“The radical Democrats want to turn the US into a communist country,” he continued.
“We won those elections. We won them big. We can’t let them get away with it.”
Earlier speakers had kept to similar themes, slamming 2020 election victor President Joe Biden as “weak” and “deranged”, and taking aim at the “lamestream media”, who were duly booed by the crowd.
It was a greatest hits of Trumpism, playing all the expected notes: a stolen election, the unfairness of the media, open borders and how the US has become “a laughing stock all over the world”. There was a carnival feeling for much of the day.
Flags proclaiming ‘Trump 2020’ and ‘Trump 2024’ fluttered in the desert wind, as chants of “Let’s Go Brandon” erupted from the good-natured crowd.
The slogan has become code in right-wing circles after a news reporter mistook coarse anti-Biden chants.
