At 7:21 tonight, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, walked straight onto the stage in Covelli Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, and told the crowd how much he liked the “ass” of one of the men he was there to campaign for to keep his position in federal office.
“I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining his body … and I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole... And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these claws.”
The rest of his nearly 1½-hour-long rally showed much of the same bizarre ramblings and just how much Trump seems to be struggling mentally, not even halfway through his second term.
The man with the body Trump admired was actually Senator Jon Husted, one of the two men that Trump had flown to Ohio to campaign for. The other was Vivek Ramaswamy, who he had actually campaigned against during the Republican presidential primaries. But Trump seemed particularly fascinated by Husted, because that wasn’t the only time that he commented on Husted’s body. At one point, he even stopped what he was about to say and blurted out, “Look at that jawline,” and “I’ll tell you, I never saw that. I never studied him and now I study him. I say, why was he such a good football? Look at the jawline. He’s tough as hell.”
As the rally went on, it moved past embarrassing and into the reminder that there really is nothing Donald Trump will not say. With no impulse control, whatever enters his mind exits his mouth without hesitation, and that is a terrible trait for a president to have. One of the first things he said at a campaign rally, where his party’s polling numbers keep falling, was to talk about how impressed he was with a senator’s backside. He has lost the ability to regulate what he says in public, and there is nobody who will stop him. The only people around him are the ones pushing him to get even more extreme. But what this really reveals isn’t just that there are no limits to what he will say, but that we may very well be reaching the point where there is nothing he will not do as well.
Later in his speech, the crowd, who had been cheering at the worst of what he said and laughing when they should have been concerned, started chanting “four more years.” Trump did not skip a beat and, with a grin and a smirk, responded, “I would love to do that. I’ll be honest.” He had said a week ago that he only teases another run to upset Democrats. “We’ve driven them crazy. They’re sick individuals.” No doubt if he thought he could actually do it, he would, and law-and-order supporters would cheer him on.
Then came the threats. He said that if Democrats ever regained power, “He’s going to be the last Republican president in the history of our country. I will be. I will be. I will be the last Republican president.” He is desperate to make Democrats, and really anyone who has not completely bowed down to him, the enemy and a grave threat to life in the United States. The people in that room with him seemed to think that the only thing standing between them and some unnamed but frightening threat is keeping Republicans in power forever, even as their daily lives become more expensive and uncertain under Republican control of all three branches of government.
Not too long after that, he brought up eliminating the Senate filibuster, which would allow Republicans to pass most legislation with a simple majority instead of needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, when he said, “Frankly, we should terminate the filibuster.” He kept going, “You terminate the filibuster, you get everything. It’ll be so beautiful. You’ll do it all.” He then let it slip exactly why he wants the filibuster gone so badly, “We will never lose an election again because we’ll have really good safeguards. All strict.” He wants to eliminate the filibuster so that he can push through changes to our election laws that would ensure he truly will never lose an election again, or most likely ever even have them again, and if we do, they will be in name only, like in Russia and Belarus. He is openly advocating for the end of our democratic republic in the United States.
His comments are especially concerning when you consider that just a couple of weeks ago, it was announced that the Trump administration had refused to invite international election observers to monitor our upcoming midterm elections. This breaks a long-standing tradition that has been in place for more than two decades. Since 2002, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has monitored every federal election in the United States and provided independent observation of how our elections are conducted. They have been shut out for the first time ever. The countries that have also refused to allow these observers include Russia and Belarus. These are the last countries we should be following when it comes to protecting free and fair elections, and yet once again, under the leadership, or lack thereof, of Donald Trump, here we are.
Not everybody in the audience just nodded along with everything he said. There were two protesters who broke through the dangerous rhetoric coming from Donald Trump. The second was a woman wearing a shirt that read “Release the Epstein Files” and whom a Trump supporter ended up punching in the face, shoving into the bleachers, grabbing by the hair, and attempting to shove her head into the ground. Security arrived and removed the woman, however the man who attacked her was not removed. He stayed in the arena and exchanged high-fives with other attendees while she was escorted out.
Trump watched all of this happen from the stage and just took it in, never once condemning the violence. He called the protesters “scum” and said they were “paid by the lefties in order to destroy our country.” When it came to the protester who was beaten, he went even further, mocking her appearance and misgendering her, calling her a “fat guy” going “back home to mom,” and the crowd laughed.
The president of the United States stood at the podium and made it clear whose side he was on when he laughed along with this latest show of violence. This is the world that Donald Trump has created, where violence is no longer viewed as a bad thing, and it’s not just accepted. It’s now encouraged. Much like everything this administration does, there are parallels to past times of the rise of dictators, authoritarianism, and fascism.
Back in the early 1920s, before Mussolini had even consolidated full power in Italy, his Blackshirts, the squadristi, beat socialists, trade unionists, journalists, and political opponents at rallies and in public spaces. Police stood by and watched, and in many towns, they enabled it. Historians have long said that violence is not a side effect of fascism. They have said that it is one of the essential components of a fascist takeover, with the populace learning to see violence as patriotic, and even heroic.
When what happened tonight is seen in the bigger picture alongside Pete Hegseth’s announcement of a livestreamed public execution by firing squad, it all makes more sense. This is just the Trump administration following the modern-day strongman playbook.
The rest of what Trump said focused on his continued efforts to divide us and make us see each other, and especially our black and brown migrant communities, as the enemy and a threat. He once again shared the fake claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio: “Remember during the debate I said some of the things they were doing. I was right.” He was most certainly not right about any of those ugly lies. He called Somali immigrants “low IQ” and said they come from a place where “they don’t have pants to wear.” He called the Democratic candidate for Michigan governor “a jihadist” twice. He attacked the woman he is obsessed with, Representative Ilhan Omar, calling her “a disaster” who “comes in from a country without laws, without police, without military, without all they do is shoot each other,” while the crowd chanted for her deportation. This happened on the same day that federal agents searched Omar’s home under a judicial warrant in his administration’s attempt to harass her.
He continued to make very little sense in the context of why he was there at that rally, going on a rambling tangent about how he fired more than a million federal workers and compared it to his reality television show: “We fired. Fired. We whatever we did. I don’t know what you call it like the apprentice. You’re fired. Get the hell out of here.” There is nothing Donald Trump will not say to a cheering crowd, to try to keep unchecked power ahead of the midterm elections, or even beyond that.
There was a time before Donald Trump entered politics when our “politics” were not like this. Obama and McCain ran a civil, respectful campaign. There were moments when McCain stopped his own supporters from going too far, correcting a woman at a town hall who called Obama an Arab by saying, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.” He even told supporters who said they were afraid of an Obama presidency that Obama was a decent person and someone they did not need to fear. Obama and Romney debated their differences in policy without trying to dehumanize each other or tear the country apart. When Romney lost in 2012, he congratulated Obama and said he prayed that the president would succeed in guiding the country. Obama, in turn, praised Romney’s family’s record of public service and spoke about finding ways they could work together.
Even George W. Bush, just days after the September 11 attacks, went to a mosque in Washington, D.C., and reminded Americans that Muslim citizens deserved respect and should not be blamed for the actions of terrorists. He understood that anger and fear could turn Americans against one another, and that part of his responsibility as president was to prevent that from happening. These were not politicians who always agreed, and their campaigns were certainly not without ugly moments. But there were still moments when leaders understood that winning an election did not require turning fellow Americans against each other. They were trying to win elections; they were not trying to destroy the shared understanding of decency that holds our country together.
The one common denominator in the ugliness that has overshadowed the United States since this country lost its civility is Donald Trump. He has gone way past just changing the tone of our politics. He has been systematically trying to destroy everything that still ties us to each other and to our country: our shared sense of morality, history, and ability to disagree without dehumanizing each other. He does this because he needs us broken and without hope. He knows that a united country does not need a strongman; only a broken one does. He is not, and never has, tried to make America great. He is trying to completely destroy this country to change it from the United States of America to the United States of Trump.
What is concerning so many of us right now isn’t just what he said today. We have heard all of it before. It’s what he is willing to do, and the speed he is moving right now. He said he would ban Muslims, and then he did. He said the election was stolen, and then his supporters stormed the Capitol. He said he would go after his enemies, and he has, but now he is sending federal agents to search a sitting, duly elected congresswoman’s home in the morning, and that night he is on stage encouraging a crowd to chant for her deportation. The things that he teases become the things he does next. So when he talks about all of these terrible things happening, we need to hear it as planning, not threats.
If we do not deliver a blue wave of historic proportions, the country our children and grandchildren inherit will be unrecognizable to the one we grew up in. One election will not fix all of our problems, but it will cause a major roadblock in the completion of everything he described tonight. The alternative, with him holding unchecked power, is not a future I am willing to accept. Not for my family or yours. And not for the entire world suffering through a madman occupying the Oval Office.
The real reason Donald Trump was in Ohio tonight had nothing to do with how much he claims to love the state. He was there because his support is slipping, and the numbers are showing just how much trouble he is in, even in a state he won comfortably just two years ago. His approval rating there has fallen to 36 percent. The proof was in that building tonight, with The Washington Post reporting that large sections of the Covelli Centre, including the upper seating areas, were mostly empty. He posted on Truth Social, “Big Crowd at Ohio Rally. Tremendous Response to Radical Left Socialists, Communists, and Lunatics trying to take over our Country. See you later, Ohio! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” but his attempts to cover up just how unpopular he has become are getting harder to pull off when the empty seats are there for everyone to see.
He wants us to be hopeless because hopelessness is a sign that his authoritarian takeover is complete or primed to succeed. But we are not hopeless, and we are not giving up. Yes, things are going to get harder. We will be dealing with the consequences of what he and his enablers have done to this country and the world for years and decades to come. But we have faced hard times before, and every single time, we have come out on the other side vowing to make our country better. The pendulum always swings. We just have to catch it and push it further to the right side of history this time. At the end of the day, when we start to feel tired, we have to keep reminding ourselves that what we are doing is working, or he wouldn’t be fighting so hard to convince us otherwise. That is why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: My youngest painted this today. She is so talented and has always had this incredible artistic ability. She also made cookies this afternoon. She and her sisters are the reason I’ll never stop fighting for this country and the children of the world. They deserve so much better than the past 10+ years, and it truly feels like the tide has turned in some major ways. We can’t afford to get comfortable, but at the same time it's okay to acknowledge the uphill battle we have all climbed to get here. We also should be proud that we have not fallen for any of the Trump Regime propaganda when so many others have, and we have not been scared into silence either. All things worth celebrating!
Links to sources used in writing this article:
Trump speaks at midterm rally in Youngstown, Ohio: PBS NewsHour Video
https://apnews.com/article/trump-ohio-rally-youngstown-husted-ramaswamy
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-rally-protester-punched
https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/12/politics/donald-trump-ohio-rally
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/12/trump-youngstown-ohio-rally
https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/09/25/us-trump-administration-rejects-external-election-observers
https://apnews.com/article/trump-omar-home-search-federal-agents
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-senate-race-pac-socialist-candidate-brown
Excellent article. Your daughter’s painting is truly amazing!
Was Hillary wrong calling Trump supporters deplorables?