FiveThirtyEight founder and statistician Nate Silver did a complete 180 on former President Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday after it went from being a “pretty good speech” to “boring AF.”
At the beginning of Trump’s more than 90-minute speech, Silver was largely praiseworthy of the former president’s performance.
“It’s a weird but pretty good speech,” he wrote. “The past few weeks have gone about as badly as possible for Democrats, and they’re likely underdogs against Trump regardless of who they nominate, but the opportunity to reset the campaign with a non-Biden nominee is a twist of good fortune.”
As the speech continued to go on and on, however, Silver began to change his opinion.
“Semi-retract this tweet, this speech is boring AF,” he wrote, forty minutes after his initial post. “But there are worse things politically speaking than being boring.”
Twenty minutes later, Silver had performed a complete 180, fully retracting his earlier praise for
the speech.
“Fully RETRACT and RESCIND,” he tweeted. “Sometimes it seems like both parties are trying to throw this election.”
Silver’s remarks echoed the criticism that many others made, including former Trump senior adviser David Urban.
“Shorten the damn rallies!” he complained following Trump’s lengthy, record-breaking address. “Donald Trump needs to cut down about 30, 40 minutes. Go back to the old days. That’s the big critique of this speech. Too long.”
As Trump’s speech went on for more than 90 minutes, some members of the audience could be seen closing their eyes and falling asleep.
According to several reporters who were at the convention, others in the audience became visibly “restless” and even started to leave before Trump had finished.