A little over a decade ago, Donald Trump posted a tweet wishing a “Happy Father’s Day to all, even the haters and losers!” Trump clearly thought this was brilliant. Since then he’s lashed out at his enemies with similarly phrased faux magnanimity on a variety of holidays, including Easter, New Year’s Eve, and September 11.
So a backhanded Trump Christmas greeting was to be expected this year. But the president-elect put a fresh spin on his 2024 holiday message by turning it into a villain monologue.
Trump’s December 25 started with misdirection. He posted this brief and boring greeting to Truth Social:
But rather than signing off from Truth Social and focusing on spending a merry Christmas with his loved ones, Trump posted and reposted an astounding 40 messages over the next nine hours. He gloated about how he’d outsmarted multiple foes, including George Stephanopoulos, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama:
He promoted some henchmen:
And he bragged about how he’s made sports hero Wayne Gretzky see the power of the dark side:
Finally, Trump delivered his too-long monologue, in which he needlessly revealed the full extent of his dastardly plans:
This two-“page” tirade does differ a little from the classic villain speech. Trump isn’t threatening to take over the world, just the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland (so far).
And as Backstage noted, a truly excellent bad-guy monologue “persuades the audience — even only slightly — that the villain’s course of action makes sense” and “that their nefarious deeds have cause.” Trump’s deeper motives — as well as his decision to put anything in quotation marks and capitalize the word taxes — aren’t immediately apparent.
Moreover, this is missing a moment in which Trump explains, “We’re not so different, you and I.” Unless you spent the holidays screaming at people about the countries you’re going to invade now that you’ve vanquished all your enemies, it’s probably hard to relate to Trump’s Christmas message.
