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Other than me, the first person to read a draft of my next newsletter is usually my wife, Kelli. Sometimes—this time being a prime example—she doesn’t get the same kick I do out of my title and subtitle ideas. I will run something by her expecting a guffaw or “That’s perfect!” but receive instead a look that says, I can’t wait to hear the logic behind this one. I then begin explaining my idea and realize, as I hear it out loud, that the reference will be lost on those those who have not watched Raising Arizona a dozen times or read any of the Captain Underpants books.
Most often, I take a moment to mourn the death of my idea and then come up with something that requires no explanation. Sometimes—this time being a prime example—I keep my original idea as a sort of gift for the few who might enjoy it, like an Easter egg in a video game (or so I’ve heard). Later, I might bump into my wife while looking at comments and say, “Look, at that. Janet from Jacksonville loved what I did with the title. . . . She really gets me.” I can tell that my wife sometimes wishes Janet wouldn’t egg me on like that.
This is a political newsletter, not a literary-analysis blog. I won’t be examining The Great Gatsby, but I could apply some techniques from the exciting world of literary analysis to the speeches and social-media posts of The Great Gasbag. I could look at what is repeated in his communications, examine his go-to sentence structure, and compare him to others in the same genre. Trump, who makes the worst characters in The Great Gatsby look like exemplars charity and empathy, recently added a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York to his list of political communications. Captain Underpants would have handled it with more grace.
I have been to more than half a dozen service academy graduations. Trump’s address to the USMA Class of 2025 was by far the least compelling and the most partisan of them all. It was the only one I have ever seen that contained even a hint of political partisanship. I could say it was simply the worst service academy commencement address ever, but “worst” is a Trumpian word: unspecific, subjective, and judgmental.
Trump’s speech was almost an hour long. He was speaking at a graduation and commissioning ceremony, not a campaign rally. For the cadets, Graduation Week had been a whirlwind of events. There were military obligations and obligations to friends and family who had traveled to West Point from every state in the union and from bases overseas. Trump’s speech was the final obstacle to walking across the stage to celebration and freedom from the rigors of Academy life. Take out the petty grievances and pointless drivel, and the speech could have been delivered in ten minutes or less. By comparison, Joe Biden’s last three commencement addresses at service academies clocked in at 20, 25, and 31 minutes long. Kamala Harris’s last two were both 20 minutes long.
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The transcripts of Biden’s speeches had [Laughter] denoted in them 34 times. Trump’s speech at West Point had none. I went back and listened, thinking they had missed it, but there was only a smattering of laughter at Trump’s commencement address, and none of it seemed to come from a significant portion of the crowd. Kamala Harris’s two speeches had [Laughter] denoted ten times.
Biden and Harris mentioned the Constitution at least once in all five of the commencement addresses I looked at. It was completely absent from Trump’s speech, so I decided to give the Trump administration a mulligan. I checked JD Vance’s commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy: no mention of the Constitution. This is indicative of where our political parties have stood since at least 2016: Democrats emphasizing that we swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a person or party, while Republicans pass a budget bill out of the House with a provision that will prevent federal courts from pursuing contempt actions if the Trump administration decides to ignore the courts and do as they please. They are ready to hand Donald Trump the scepter and crown.
Trump wore a MAGA hat while he spoke, so it was clear before he started that he wouldn’t be continuing the long tradition of nonpartisan commencement addresses at the service academies. He riffed about imagined failings of Obama and Biden. (Over the first 29 days of May, Trump has typed Biden’s name into 29 social media posts.) He whined about how he “went through a very tough time with some very radicalized sick people,” when he was “investigated more that the great, late Alphonse Capone.” He claimed to have rebuilt the military “like nobody has ever rebuilt it before.”
He talked about professional golfer Gary Player and real estate developer William Levitt, who got divorced and then got a “trophy wife.” After Trump said “trophy wife” a second time, the crowd had to be wondering if they were about to enter Arnold-Palmer’s-penis territory. “It didn't work out too well,” Trump said of William Levitt’s new marriage, “but it doesn't—and that doesn't—work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives doesn't (sic) work out, but it made him happy for a little while at least.” I had to calm my trophy wife down after she heard that part.
The Commander-in-Chief, who did not remain on the stage to shake hands with the graduating cadets, also spoke to the soon-to-be commissioned military officers about our allies:
“We’ve been ripped off at the NATO level. We’ve been ripped off like no country has ever been ripped off. But they don’t rip us off anymore. They’re not gonna rip us off anymore. And you’re seeing it. You have to watch what we’re doing on trade.”
No Trump speech would be complete without some variation on “like no one has ever seen before” and other hyperbole. Trump uses meaningless intensifiers, adverbs, and adjectives like no one has ever seen before. Comparing his speeches to Biden’s once again, we can see Trump running up the score. He has 56 instances of “really” or “very” to Biden’s five. Tremendous, amazing, great, terrible, best, worst, a lot, biggest, or beautiful appear over 70 times in Trump’s speech and not at all in Biden’s.
Trump’s commencement address was almost as unfair to the USMA Class of 2025 as he thinks everything and everyone has been unfair to him. He should count himself lucky that he does not have to deal with a trophy wife.
Trump’s speech was really, really, very, very, bad—like no one has ever seen before, quite frankly. Analyzing it was horrible, terrible, and the worst. It was very unfair. But, as promised, I did not analyze The Great Gatsby or even use it for comparison. I’m saving that for later, because I just know there will be an opportunity to title a future newsletter, “The Great Catsby.”

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