Trump admits he says stupid things and his crowd cheers

Trump admits he says stupid things and his crowd cheers

Donald Trump said it bluntly: "It's incredible. I can say the most stupid things, and you applaud." The remark, made at a rally, sums up the political phenomenon that has been quietly normalizing in the United States for years. It is not a repentant confession. It is an observation. The former president describes precisely how his relationship with his electoral base works: the more absurd the outburst, the louder the applause.

The episode has reignited a debate that goes beyond US borders. Is Trump a one-off or the culmination of a global trend? The answer depends on whom you ask. For some, he is a cynic who laughs at his voters, and they laugh along. For others, he is the only politician who openly admits what everyone else does in silence.

Applause as a thermometer of today's politics

The scene has precedents. You don't have to look far back. In Spain, Mariano Rajoy came up with lines that his own voters chanted without fully understanding them. "The worse it gets for everyone, the better," he said in 2013. The paradox cost him nothing at the ballot box. The applause worked just the same.

Some argue that the Trump phenomenon is nothing more than the American version of a familiar pattern: the leader who says whatever he thinks without a filter and turns shamelessness into a virtue. Against that, the opposite argument gains ground: the difference is that Trump admits it. There is no hypocrisy. There is display.

The reaction in Spain was not long in coming. On economic and political forums, the comparison with Pedro Sánchez was immediate. "He's like Sánchez at the rallies of his sheep," someone wrote. Others brought up Rajoy. The most repeated conclusion: they're all the same.

From Christopher Columbus to stupidity as a strategy

The same day, Trump rehabilitated Christopher Columbus: "He's a hero, I say it with pride." The coincidence is no accident. The former president alternates provocative statements with symbolic gestures that rally his base. He is not trying to persuade. He is trying to mobilize.

The question hanging in the air is whether declared stupidity is a strategy or a surrender. Some analysts point to the former: owning the absurd disarms critics. If he says it himself, what can you hold against him? It is the jester's shield.

Others see something more worrying. The normalization of lying and of the outburst as political tools has consequences. When the leader admits he says stupid things and his base applauds, public debate is drained of substance. All that is left is noise.

What the remark reveals about the electorate

Trump's confession is not only about Trump. It is about those who applaud him. The remark implies a complicit relationship: I say nonsense, you applaud me, we both know it's a game. The problem is that the game has real consequences.

In Spain, the comparison with national politics is inevitable. Rajoy said incomprehensible things and his supporters applauded. Sánchez says what his voters want to hear and his supporters applaud. Trump says stupid things and his supporters applaud. The pattern repeats itself.

The difference, if there is one, is that Trump says it out loud. There is no attempt to hide it. It is politics as spectacle, with no pretense of rigor. And it works.

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The unsettling thing is not the remark. It is the applause. Trump can say the most ridiculous things and his crowd responds with enthusiasm. Content doesn't matter. Belonging does. Politics has become a ritual of identity, not a debate of ideas. And meanwhile, those watching from the outside wonder whether this is a symptom or the new normal.