Trump’s Final Placement Review: Virgin Media’s Richard Chambers’ Trip Through Trumpland Has Unexpected Detours

No disrespect to Richard Chambers, a very good broadcast journalist, I fear his documentary Trump’s final position (Virgin Media 1, Tuesday) could be the case of trying to jump on a boat that has left the harbor.

It opened with Donald Trump’s announcement that he would run for president again, delivered from his Mar-a-Lago resort last November, in the midst of the Communist Party’s existential crisis. peace.

As many senior members of the Republican Party feared, Trump’s luster had disappeared by that point. Just days after the candidates he endorsed had poor results in the midterm elections (Trump, of course, lied and claimed the exact opposite), the major Republicans have pointing fingers to blame for Trump’s failures need information that he will return to the ring as they need a hole in the head.

The landscape has been changed even more since then. Trump is facing unprecedented legal jeopardy on several fronts, which, with a bit of luck, could eventually lead to an orange prison suit to go with that fake tan.

Although he is currently the only Republican to announce his candidacy, there is expectation that Florida governor Ron DeSantis – arguably an even more dangerous threat to democracy than Trump – will also pursue the nomination and have a better chance of becoming the Republican nominee.

Given all of this, and since there have been quite a few documentaries about Trump, there’s the danger of a movie looking at the damage the 45-hour president leaves behind when he wakes up and looks at it.” barriers,” as Chambers put it, confronting him. The bid to return to the White House in 2024 may feel a bit stale.

Refreshingly, Chambers strayed from a predictable path before selecting interviewees, including Washington, D.C. heroic police officer Dan Hodges, who nearly died defending the Capitol from swarms of enemies. Trump-inspired attacker Zoe Weissman, Parkland school shooting survivor, is now an activist against gun violence. , and civil servant Maurice Costigan from Portlaoise, who had lived in the United States for a long time, but was so frustrated that America had become so ugly that he and his family were considering leaving a country where he said to be “bordering fascism”.

Dave Aronberg, Palm Beach County Attorney and former Democratic congressman, has a more optimistic view. He believes that the majority of Americans are on the right side – as opposed to the far right – and decency. The problem is, the other side makes the most noise.

Denver distillery owner Riggleman, a former Army officer and Republican senator who has been abused for speaking out against QAnon, said: “The madman always has more energy than he does. alertness.

Video of the day

Riggleman, who fears the Capitol riots are “just a warm-up” to worse things to come, said he has lost friends and family who truly believe Donald Trump has a connection. direct contact with God.

“We have a fact-defying community that will make policy for the United States,” he said.

Sooner or later, any documentary about Trumpism, no matter how many moderate, rational voices it underpins, will counter the utter derangement that has engulfed America, and the This movie is no different.

Taking a detour to Ave Maria, a town founded in 2015 by the owner of Domino’s Pizza as a sort of mecca for ultra-conservative Catholics, Chambers met the elderly, supportive Offaly woman. Trump’s surrogate, Mary Mitchell, who has lived in Florida for decades.

She said Joe Biden was “a disgrace”, that America and Ireland had “go to hell”, and that Trump “did a great job while he was there”.

I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for the self-serving appearances from Mick Mulvaney and Sean Spicer, but otherwise this is a sure-fire, often startling journey through Trumpland.

Rating: three stars