It’s possible to overanalyze these sentence fragments. The jumping from one topic to the next without completing a thought makes it so Trump rarely says enough to escape plausible deniability. This manner of speaking has been noted in objective linguistic analysis to be consistent with the sort seen in early stages of cognitive decline. Though at least some of the pacing here was the result of interruption from wild applause from a crowd that would not likely have reacted with such approval to a man apologizing for the stagnant health-policy situation.
Instead he drew cheers for projecting toughness and bravado—for saying his catchphrase, “You’re fired!” The crowd responded well to the shared sense of superiority over the more familiar other: black NFL players who protest the power structure. The crowd cheered for the days when men were men and they hit each other hard—when there was no discourse on the harm that could be done from head injuries, just as there was no concern for “safe spaces” for trauma victims or “political correctness” to call attention to divisive rhetoric. This was the time when America was apparently great. [...]
In all of these statements Trump could reasonably be—and widely is—said to be engaging in racial demagoguery for political gain. Over the weekend he would go on to praise the largely white NHL and NASCAR while calling for black athletes who protest state abuses of power to be fired. He is also quite possibly not so calculating as to consciously weaponize racism and authoritarianism, but is engaging in a sort of demagoguery fueled firstly by his own impulse to gain approval. His code of masculinity dictates that this is done by saying things that incline people to perceive him as a powerful man.
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