The 8 Worst Speeches in Modern Political History

The 8 Worst Speeches in Modern Political History

Alexander Meddings - October 16, 2017

The 8 Worst Speeches in Modern Political History
Trump’s Address at Sun City. Bluffton Today

Donald Trump’s Sun City Address

Though too recent not to cause controversy, the speech Trump delivered on campaign in Sun City, South Carolina on July 21, 2015, cannot but feature for its absolute bumbling incomprehensibility. Devoid of both context and content, the address made as little sense as his presidency (as is apparent from the facial expressions of those present). What makes it bizarrely impressive, however, especially for writers like myself, is that he managed to fit it all into one sentence. The speech went as follows.

What most people agree started off as a discourse about nuclear energy soon deviated into a biography about his uncle John Trump, a professor and scientist at MIT. That John Trump was a smart man should be self-evident from his job title, but the presidential candidate chose to drive the message home. But then the Republican candidate went completely off the rails, and seeing as I have absolutely no idea how to summarise what he wanted to say, I’m just going to go ahead and provide the full text:

“…you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged…”

Drifting seamlessly back into the nuclear issue, he then told his audience that his uncle told him about the power of nuclear energy 35 years ago, that there are four prisoners (apparently it used to be three, now it’s four) and that we haven’t yet worked out that women are smarter than men — we’ll find this out, apparently, within 150 years. If this seems utterly incomprehensible that’s because it is, constituting an erratic stream-of-consciousness in what many consider the most perplexing speech in recent political history.

Nor was Trump’s rare endorsement of female superiority even the end. Conclusions, as we all know, are important, and they’re at their most effective when they tie together the speech’s overall theme. This being the case, Trump completely missed the mark, finishing this part of his speech / run-on sentence by talking about how the Persians and Iranians alike are great negotiators. The latter “they just killed us…”

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