At first glance, Melania Trump’s Republican convention speech on Monday was a pretty ordinary candidate’s spouse address, but subsequent readings suggest a whole lot went awry here.
Did Melania Trump include a Rickroll in the middle of her convention speech?
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Dylan Matthews was a senior correspondent and head writer for Vox’s Future Perfect section. He is particularly interested in global health and pandemic prevention, anti-poverty efforts, economic policy and theory, and conflicts about the right way to do philanthropy.
For one thing, she or her speechwriter appears to have cribbed a whole paragraph from Michelle Obama’s Democratic convention speech from 2008. For another, she and/or her speechwriter included a full-on Rickroll:
But to reiterate (and to paraphrase @tvoti), the real speechwriter's scandal here is this ACTUAL RICKROLL?!?!?!?!?! pic.twitter.com/eSuFbbVs43
— mr. sonia (@soniasaraiya) July 19, 2016
Really. Watch it here:
Sure, Melania did not follow up with “he will never run around or desert you,” but if the allusion to Rick Astley’s classic “Never Gonna Give You Up” was accidental, that’s one hell of a coincidence.
