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Democrats turned Night 2 of the Democratic National Convention into a full-on Donald Trump roast session. The best mockery all shared a consistent theme: Trump is too small a man to be deserving of the presidency because America has outgrown his petulant, self-serving type of leadership.
Tuesday was cathartic for those in the Democratic Party who wanted to see Democrats show some resolve by fighting back against Trump’s unhinged insults with a lil’ flavor of their own. And many of them delivered with some pointed jabs at his self-image.
Trump and his followers like to portray him as a larger-than-life figure — an icon, an American idol. But with their carefully placed digs, Democrats brought him down to size with remarks about his smallness or weakness: his unimpressive intellect, his juvenile self-obsession, his unstable finances, and his petty competitiveness about … crowd sizes.
Here are some of my highlights:
Barack Obama on size matters
Former President Barack Obama’s quip mocking Trump’s weird focus on crowd sizes — and the, shall we say, suggestive hand gesture Obama made while cracking the joke — have taken the internet by storm. Seriously, great comedic timing from Obama here. But the underlying point was a powerful one: Trump is too concerned with trivial score-setting to be an effective president.
Michelle Obama makes it plain
Former first lady Michelle Obama’s remarks about Trump’s rabid attacks on her and her husband over the years portrayed Trump as a petty bigot. A man too small-minded and self-conscious to respect two hard-working Black people who ascended to great heights on their own merit — and, unlike him, couldn’t “expect an escalator to take us to the top” when confronted with a mountain.
“His limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black,” she said.
Alsobrooks jabs MAGA's limited imagination
U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks lobbed a similar attack when she claimed Trump and his movement have consumed America’s focus and limited our political imagination.
Ever since Donald Trump rode down that ridiculous escalator, we as a nation have felt trapped. Every national decision has been made in reaction to this one man, and his extremist, MAGA movement. We are still frozen by the fear that Donald Trump might once again come to power. And it’s not just our politics that have been trapped — it’s our imagination. And then Kamala came along. Kamala has reminded us that we don’t need to fear anything. Not the future, and certainly not that man. This is our moment to leave Donald Trump where he belongs: in America’s past.
Pritzker's cash talk
Other than Barack Obama, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker may have hurt Trump’s ego the most with his comments mocking Trump’s finances and his intelligence at once.
"Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich,” Pritzker said. “But take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.”
Pritzker and his fellow Democrats had the DNC feeling like Def Comedy Jam at points on Tuesday, which clearly played well in the room and online. But importantly, they used those jokes to pivot to the very real, very serious discussion about the threat a second Trump election might pose to American democracy. Good speechcraft all around.