You Can Mute Trump

We can all do it together

This Sunday, the pleasant if occasionally unnerving quiet that has returned to American life over the last month will be broken: Donald Trump is speaking again. The former President will return to the Conservative Political Action Conference, the place where he hugged a flag two years ago and where a disturbingly large percentage of the people in attendance were first exposed to Covid-19 last year. It’s going to be quite the party.

It will be the first public appearance for the former President since he gave his awkward, rambling, “Skyrocket Downward” speech on the tarmac shortly before President Biden’s inauguration. Since then, neutered by all his social media bans, Trump has been incredibly quiet. He called into Fox News when Rush Limbaugh died, he unleashed a few press release screeds (which just don’t have the same angry verve they do on Twitter) and he has surely eaten a megaton of Mar-a-Lago cheeseburgers. But mostly: He’s just been a retired guy in Florida.

That is going to change Sunday. CPAC always gets a lot of coverage — too much coverage — anyway, and with Trump on stage for the first time since leaving office, you can expect most news networks to cover his speech live. This is journalistically sketchy, to say the least; any news value Trump’s first speech might provide will surely be outweighed by the…