You people deserve me. Day in, day out, I have been showing you the glories of my waves, and now, come the hour, you have granted me the highest honour. I salute you.

You have bestowed greatness upon this country, of making it great again. You have vanquished mediocrity. The conventional look. Gone. The sensible part. Gone.

I will now make you in my image. I will lead you into the world, my follicles, and together we will show the lesser strands of life who is the master. The ones who are not us. They will be sculpted to my will. They will quail before my coiffure.

For none have the wildness, the virility, that I possess. Isn’t that why you love me?  That I am not like others. I even changed colour for you in my evolving. What greater sacrifice can there be in America?

The one who stands below me once said:

“What I do is, wash it with Head and Shoulders. I don’t dry it, though. I let it dry by itself. It takes about an hour.  I then comb my hair. Yes, I do use a comb. Do I comb it forward? No, I don’t comb it forward. I actually don’t have a bad hairline. When you think about it, it’s not bad. I mean, I get a lot of credit for comb-overs. But it’s not really a comb-over. It’s sort of a little bit forward and back. I’ve combed it the same way for years. Same thing, every time.”

Same thing, every time. I have been among you for years. Am I not the supreme individualist to which you all aspire? I travelled the length and breadth of the country, attending to your needs and desires for a new model, a new style.

I have lost count of the halls, conference rooms, outdoor stages where I have held you all in thrall, holding fast against the elements and rages of my enemies. I defied them all. I ma beyond their puny definitions, of what is right or what is wrong.

And now, I can feel the winds of change, coursing through my very being. The roots of power are with you, my friends. I will not let you down.

Before this great moment, I said: “If we don’t win, this will be the single greatest waste of time, energy and money in my life.” But it has been the single greatest use of my time, energy and money. No one can give me the brush-off now.

Every minute of every day, I presented myself to you. Such was my potency that news magazines did graphics on the mechanics of my existence. I was compared to the finest in nature: the South American Flannel Moth caterpillar. Experts were brought in to dissect my shape and form.

But you, a grateful people, have nourished my ambitions. Let my opponents comb the wreckage of their defeat for answers. I am the force that cannot be stopped.

I am no longer the hair apparent. I am hair! Forever!

As transcribed by Warwick McFadyen, a freelance writer and editor