America's gold-leaf salesman-in-chief came to Las Vegas Wednesday to remind Nevadans just how good we have it.

President Donald Trump's pitch to the converted at the Red Rock Resort touched on well-worn themes and grievances in a political-climate-controlled atmosphere where he could boast about securing the world's largest oil stockpile without bothering to explain why gasoline prices remain so high. But it was a time set aside for the suspension of reality and niggling facts.

To call Trump a braggadocious bully breaks no new ground, but to his credit he was at the top of his game. The confidence man was right on brand as he delivered an advertisement for himself with a high level of energy that surely made his critics cringe. They keep waiting for him to fall over, and he keeps defying gravity.

Now that he's peppering his weaving oratory with allusions to "socialism" and "communism" should the Democrats prevail in the midterms, we have more news of imminent dangers to look forward to. And as we know, the salesman loves few things more than imminent dangers. The man who learned about hustling the people and the press at the foot of the merciless Machiavellian Roy Cohn continues to follow his hero's playbook.

As advertised, the Trump rally was intended to serve as a political booster shot to the top of the Nevada GOP ticket. I'm guessing those who attended in person saw it as a success and fall into the category of the officially vaccinated.

There was enough time for Lt. Gov. Stavros Anthony (R) to celebrate the vanquishing of imminently dangerous transgender athletes from American sports despite the fact the NCAA reports fewer than a dozen among a half-million participants. Beyond that, Anthony spent much of his warmup speech repeating the word "socialist" in connection with the "Dumocrat Party."

And maybe, given an unlimited campaign checkbook, this will still play in Nevada. But I'm betting it won't. Of the bunch swooning for Trump's approval, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) has the most at stake. By being perceived as cuddling up to Trump in what's shaping up as a competitive race against state Attorney General Aaron Ford (D), he risks alienating independent voters who are tired of the noise and feeling the economic pinch. On Wednesday, Lombardo dropped the pretense with his late entry into the ring-kissing contest.

After complaining that his "several attempts" to communicate with the Biden administration "fell on deaf ears," Lombardo said, "With President Trump, that communication is reciprocal." But "productive conversations," as Lombardo put it, don't equate to tangible results for Nevada despite the GOP's majority in both houses of Congress. Lombardo's comfortable communication with Trump, for instance, hasn't prevented the president from continuing to harass leaders of nations whose citizens have long been big contributors to Nevada's tourism economy.

Trump scored big with his celebration of the "no tax on tips" policy, a throw-in to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, featuring the sixth-largest tax cut in U.S. history with most of those cuts benefiting wealthy Americans. As an aside, Trump credited a Las Vegas waitress with the inspiration for the plan, which makes her one of the more qualified advisers in his circle.

"Quite often, when the press and the media run him down, they think about, you know, 'He's taking care of his billionaire friends,'" Lombardo continued. "But those billionaire friends provide jobs. And unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent."

Take care of them?

Nevada has the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country the last time I checked.

When Trump enthused, "The tariffs have made us rich," did Lombardo or any of the other candidates in the room pause to wonder who he was talking about?

The thought apparently didn't cross Lombardo's mind as he fell in step with the Democrats-as-socialist-communists talking points. "The government doesn't have the ability to hand out infinite amounts of money," he said. "That's not how economies work. That's why they are pushing socialism so hard. But President Trump has changed that whole mindset."

That he has.

This is a person who last week unleashed a barrage of 48 posts in a single stretch, many of them juiced by AI images of him in the company of historical figures such as George Washington and John F. Kennedy, announcing a bombing of Iran, parading a handcuffed space alien and tweaking critics Bruce Springsteen and Chris Christie.

Perhaps foreshadowing his upcoming Vegas vacation, he posted an image of himself as a flat-bellied Elvis in a white jumpsuit, which is only considered sacrilege in Sin City. What he was thinking sharing an image of himself in papal robes is anyone's guess.

For those keeping score, the man once so fascinated by the pronunciation of "groceries" declined to address high food prices in front of supporters who would go hungry before fact-checking him.

Trump being Trump inevitably meant pausing to take the working press to the woodshed as purveyors of "fake news" while failing to appreciate the irony that he has been the source of most of it.

Iran war all but over? They can't wait to make a deal. We'll bomb the hell out of them if they don't. Or not. But in the meantime, enjoy the latest update on the creepy gilded White House makeover and the national reflecting pool petri dish.

This is Trump's reality. If this was a movie, it would be titled The Matrix: End of Times.

Red pill? Blue pill? Better have one of each. There's still three months to Election Day.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.