Former president Donald Trump brought juvenile name calling, fear mongering against immigrants, and a 17th-century poetry reference to his latest long winded rally Saturday.
Trump told a crowd in Coachella, California that America’s most populous state is a “Paradise Lost” that only he can save.
In heat approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a sweaty Trump went from childish and petty—calling the state’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom Gavin “New-scum” and mispronouncing Vice President Kamala Harris’ first name while gesticulating—to invoking the 17th century English poet John Milton.
“Kamala Harris and the radical Democrats have destroyed this state. California is, really it’s a Paradise Lost,” he said, name-checking Milton’s 1667 blank verse epic poem of the same name that recounts the biblical fall of man and Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Later on in his rally, Trump claimed that he was the only person who could get the state out of a purported malaise that Republicans claim is driven by immigration and liberal policies. “Kamala Harris got you into this mess and only Trump is going to get you out of it,” he said.
As the rally went on, Trump’s attacks on migrants became increasingly vicious and bigoted, which is not unusual for a man who has already called them “animals” and “savages” among other negative epithets.
“Your children are in danger,” he claimed. “You can’t go to school with these people, these people are from a different planet.”
At other points he claimed parts of the state had been “invaded and conquered” by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “savage gangs.”
Trump visited the desert city 130 miles east of Los Angeles, best known for the annual music festival that shares its name, despite the fact that he is almost certain to lose California in next month’s presidential election.
He lost the state by six million votes in 2020 and current polls have him trailing Harris there by margins above 20 percent.
He did win several rural counties by large margins, which can impact down ballot races, and the rally served as an opportunity to make some campaign cash off of his devoted fanbase: it was $25,000 to take a picture with Trump at the Coachella event while a “VIP Experience” cost $5,000, according to NBC4 Los Angeles.
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