Remember when Trump said he knew how to act “presidential”? Remember when he said he would be even more presidential than any president except “the late, Great Abraham Lincoln”?

As we say in Brooklyn, fuhgedaboutit! (Translation: forget about it.)

Last night in Alabama, he ranted and raved and led cheers of “lock her up.” Did the late, great Abraham Lincoln do that in the middle of the Civil War?

He was there to support the aptly named Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed by the disgraced ex-governor Robert Bentley to fill Jeff Sessions’ term in the Senate. His opponent, ahead in the polls, is the far-far-far right extremist Roy Moore, who was twice removed as Chef Judge of the Alabama Court for refusing to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments from public grounds. Now he is running against homosexuality. Moore is supported by Steve Bannon, the deep thinker of the alt-right, and Sarah Palin, the paragon of morality.

But read what he said!

“The campaign has largely focused on McConnell. Moore has attacked the Senate majority leader as a creature of the “swamp” that Trump wishes to drain while Strange has tried to distance himself from the Kentucky Republican. Strange went as far as to assert in his brief introductory remarks on Friday night that Trump was backing him so that he could have the votes in the Senate to “stand up to Mitch McConnell.” The President later asserted that Strange “didn’t know” the Senate majority leader…

“Hours after John McCain torpedoed Republican hopes to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump expressed his disappointment. He said McCain’s opposition was “totally unexpected and terrible”. He also chided the Arizona Republican for what he saw as hypocrisy. “Repeal and replace, John McCain if you look at his last campaign it’s all about repeal and replace and that’s fine, we still have a good chance [of repealing and replacing Obamacare.” He described his attempts to court senators on health care, saying “I’m on the phone screaming at people all day long for weeks”.

Trump also returned to some of his favourite topics. He talked at length about the wall he hopes to build on the Mexican border, insisting it needed to be see-through. Trump said this was because drug dealers are currently using catapults to send 100 pound bags of drugs over the existing concrete wall and they are landing on people’s heads in the United States. He also responded the familiar cheers of “lock her up” directed at Hillary Clinton by telling the crowd “you gotta speak to Jeff Sessions about that”.

“The president also dwelled on NFL players who take a knee during the National Anthem in peaceful protest. He asked the crowd, “Wouldn’t you love one of the NFL owners when someone disrespects our flag, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now.’” He told attendees, “If you see it, leave the stadium, I guarantee things will stop.”

Trump uses his platform not to appeal to “the better angels of our nature” or to educate, but to rant, pander, and vent.