What Went Down During President Trump’s Closing Speech At The RNC

Trump’s speech was pretty perfunctory and included a lot of the usual things you’d expect an incumbent to brag about. It wasn’t the style of delivery he is best at, though — although he did some ad libbing, he mostly read off the teleprompter. It won’t really matter because people only watch the final hour of these things (which was all Trump), but I actually thought the rest of the night was the most effective night of the RNC by far. There were several emotional speeches, such as Ann Dorn’s, and several very rousing patriotic videos. It was the most coherent theme (“Land of Greatness”) of the week.

On the final night of the convention, Trump delivered a lengthy but cookie-cutter speech about his successes, future plans and why the Democrats stink. A few clip-worthy moments will probably make the rounds on social media among supporters, but it’s hard to imagine any voters are going to be swayed by this tonight’s festivities.

George M. Cohan’s “You’re A Grand Old Flag” is playing, and interestingly, that early-20th-century tune was originally supposed to say “grand old rag” in reference to a quote he heard from a Civil War veteran about the U.S. flag, but the use of “rag” seemed pejorative to some people, so he just used “flag” instead.