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Yes, I know, some people will say that’s been true since the 1970s. But after the spectacle that was the GOP convention, I think it’s something you can actually prove scientifically.
Mind you, a lot of what’s been said about the convention spelling horrible, horrible doom for America is overblown, or at least unremarkable. Liberals say that about EVERY Repub convention, and it’s usually based on the slanted benchmark that whatever happens at the convention is horrible and offensive mainly to liberals who basically find the very existence of conservatives horrible and offensive.
Also, one thing that’s not being talked about much is the fact that the predictions of the GOP convention resulting in wholesale violence and gunplay – and that’s just between the Republicans themselves – pretty much never actually happened. So that’s good.
However, that seems to be about the only positive thing you can say about the convention. You’ve probably read/seen all the horror stories, but here are the things that stand out for me personally:
1. Am I conservative enough for you?
The GOP revised its official platform, and while a lot of it is the same basic positions they’ve always held, they've taken many of those positions – especially the ones regarding social issues, guns and Christianity – and dialed them up to 11. It’s like the party decided, “Fuck it, why even pretend to appeal to the moderates?”
You can read the full text here, or select summaries here and here.
But this is by far the biggest story of the convention. Donald Trump doesn’t particularly agree with every plank here, but much of it is tailored to his worldview (which is why they added a plank calling for wall on the Mexican border). And it doesn’t matter if Trump disagrees with some planks – if he wins, he’s not likely to veto any particular action they take on these things unless it gets in the way of his main priorities.
Also, Mike Pence is much more on board with the platform than Trump, who allegedly intends to delegate the meat and potatoes work to Pence(Pence being the CEO to Trump’s Chairman Of The Board, I guess).
So the GOP is officially the party of Trump and conservative extremism. There’s no real middle ground from this point on – and that’s regardless of whether Trump wins.
2. For once in his life, Ted Cruz does something right
To be perfectly clear, I think Ted Cruz would make an even worse POTUS than Donald Trump, because he does agree with everything in the updated party platform. However, you have to respect him for refusing to coronate Trump – even if he did probably do it mainly to kickstart his 2020 campaign. Still, it took balls to go up there and refuse to say what yr expected to say at these things.
On the other hand, integrity only gets you so far when the only difference between Cruz and Trump is that Cruz actually believes in his inflexible hardline conservative ideology and would work overtime to inflict it on the country. Most conservatives I know only hate Trump because he’s a loudmouth poseur. So let’s not pretend that a Cruz presidency would be an improvement, or at least more sane. It would be less like a WWF event, but that’s about it.
3. The way things used to be
On a related note, it’s worth mentioning that conventions used to be a lot rowdier and more contested than this. We’ve grown used to conventions being a sort of coronation ceremony with a unified statement of purpose. But they didn’t used to be that way. And frankly, everyone was expecting this convention to be even more raucous than it turned out to be.
So in that sense, the RNC convention was a throwback to old-school conventioneering than a decline into party madness. That said, as has been accurately pointed out, at least of the chaos could have been easily avoided with better planning (i.e. vetting speeches for plagiarizing yr political enemies, allowing a guy who genuinely hates you to speak and upstage yr VP’s speech, etc).
5. BENGHAZIPALOOZA!
The Hillary HateFest portion of the convention wasn’t unexpected, but it was decidedly over the top – at least to those of us who aren't conditioned to think of Hillary as a Feminista Criminal Mastermind. It’s one thing for one speaker to run with the “Lock her up!” meme – but for three of them to run with that and milk the crowd with it like a wrestler going for a cheap pop? That’s borderline incitement. And that’s before you get to the guy who said she should be shot for treason.
Sure, you can argue that it’s just theatre and the GOP isn’t literally demanding that Hillary be jailed and/or shot. But (1) I’m reasonably sure that at least some of the people yelling “Lock her up!” weren’t kidding, and (2) whether they were or not, the overall message that the GOP is sending to both its base and the general public is that Hillary should be jailed/shot for crimes Republicans know for a fact she’s guilty of – despite some 30 years worth of investigations and no evidence of criminal wrongdoing – because there are tons of smoking guns in the alternate fantasy world they apparently live in.
Or maybe they believe the smoking gun is Hillary herself: “She can’t POSSIBLY be innocent! She’s HILLARY F***ING CLINTON, for God’s sake! That’s proof enough for me!”
Which is ironic for a group of people who also go around saying “Blue Lives matter!” and demand restoration of law and order (which would imply due process, but why bother when you KNOW people are guilty? Like Hillary? Or black people who get shot by the police and therefore probably deserve it?).
6. Dangerous creeps are everywhere
But then the “Lock her up!” meme slots in neatly with Trump’s overall message in his acceptance speech (which he shouted for 75 minutes): (1) America is in the worst shape it’s ever been (no matter what actual data tells you), and that’s because it is surrounded (and has been heavily infiltrated) by dangerous people, most of whom just happen to be non-white (and liberal!), and that’s entirely the fault of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and (2) only Donald Trump can save you!
Or, as John Scalzi nicely summed it up:
Okay, Trump did try to be inclusive by pointing out how bad life is for black people economically (being shot by racist cops excluded, because that just doesn’t happen in America), and by saying that LGBTs shouldn’t be gunned down in nightclubs because of “hateful foreign ideology” (because certainly no one with hateful domestic ideology has ever supported the idea that LGBTs should be executed in the name of God). But again, the party that nominated him (to include his VP pick) has made it clear how they feel about homosex (it’s curable, for example), and while they may agree that mowing them down en masse is wrong, that’s about as far as they're willing to go in terms of outreach.
So that’s pretty much it – the GOP is officially the Loud Terrified Fucking Angry White Guy Party, and they’re out to fix America but good.
And again, that’s regardless of whether Donald wins. He’s got over 40% of the country on his side, and that’s not going to go away under a HillRod presidency. That's the opposition she'll be dealing with. If nothing else, the “Lock her up!” meme is a stark preview of the kind of cooperation she can expect from a GOP-led Congress. The motions for impeachment will probably start November 9th.
Unconventional,
This is dF
Mind you, a lot of what’s been said about the convention spelling horrible, horrible doom for America is overblown, or at least unremarkable. Liberals say that about EVERY Repub convention, and it’s usually based on the slanted benchmark that whatever happens at the convention is horrible and offensive mainly to liberals who basically find the very existence of conservatives horrible and offensive.
Also, one thing that’s not being talked about much is the fact that the predictions of the GOP convention resulting in wholesale violence and gunplay – and that’s just between the Republicans themselves – pretty much never actually happened. So that’s good.
However, that seems to be about the only positive thing you can say about the convention. You’ve probably read/seen all the horror stories, but here are the things that stand out for me personally:
1. Am I conservative enough for you?
The GOP revised its official platform, and while a lot of it is the same basic positions they’ve always held, they've taken many of those positions – especially the ones regarding social issues, guns and Christianity – and dialed them up to 11. It’s like the party decided, “Fuck it, why even pretend to appeal to the moderates?”
You can read the full text here, or select summaries here and here.
But this is by far the biggest story of the convention. Donald Trump doesn’t particularly agree with every plank here, but much of it is tailored to his worldview (which is why they added a plank calling for wall on the Mexican border). And it doesn’t matter if Trump disagrees with some planks – if he wins, he’s not likely to veto any particular action they take on these things unless it gets in the way of his main priorities.
Also, Mike Pence is much more on board with the platform than Trump, who allegedly intends to delegate the meat and potatoes work to Pence(Pence being the CEO to Trump’s Chairman Of The Board, I guess).
So the GOP is officially the party of Trump and conservative extremism. There’s no real middle ground from this point on – and that’s regardless of whether Trump wins.
2. For once in his life, Ted Cruz does something right
To be perfectly clear, I think Ted Cruz would make an even worse POTUS than Donald Trump, because he does agree with everything in the updated party platform. However, you have to respect him for refusing to coronate Trump – even if he did probably do it mainly to kickstart his 2020 campaign. Still, it took balls to go up there and refuse to say what yr expected to say at these things.
On the other hand, integrity only gets you so far when the only difference between Cruz and Trump is that Cruz actually believes in his inflexible hardline conservative ideology and would work overtime to inflict it on the country. Most conservatives I know only hate Trump because he’s a loudmouth poseur. So let’s not pretend that a Cruz presidency would be an improvement, or at least more sane. It would be less like a WWF event, but that’s about it.
3. The way things used to be
On a related note, it’s worth mentioning that conventions used to be a lot rowdier and more contested than this. We’ve grown used to conventions being a sort of coronation ceremony with a unified statement of purpose. But they didn’t used to be that way. And frankly, everyone was expecting this convention to be even more raucous than it turned out to be.
So in that sense, the RNC convention was a throwback to old-school conventioneering than a decline into party madness. That said, as has been accurately pointed out, at least of the chaos could have been easily avoided with better planning (i.e. vetting speeches for plagiarizing yr political enemies, allowing a guy who genuinely hates you to speak and upstage yr VP’s speech, etc).
5. BENGHAZIPALOOZA!
The Hillary HateFest portion of the convention wasn’t unexpected, but it was decidedly over the top – at least to those of us who aren't conditioned to think of Hillary as a Feminista Criminal Mastermind. It’s one thing for one speaker to run with the “Lock her up!” meme – but for three of them to run with that and milk the crowd with it like a wrestler going for a cheap pop? That’s borderline incitement. And that’s before you get to the guy who said she should be shot for treason.
Sure, you can argue that it’s just theatre and the GOP isn’t literally demanding that Hillary be jailed and/or shot. But (1) I’m reasonably sure that at least some of the people yelling “Lock her up!” weren’t kidding, and (2) whether they were or not, the overall message that the GOP is sending to both its base and the general public is that Hillary should be jailed/shot for crimes Republicans know for a fact she’s guilty of – despite some 30 years worth of investigations and no evidence of criminal wrongdoing – because there are tons of smoking guns in the alternate fantasy world they apparently live in.
Or maybe they believe the smoking gun is Hillary herself: “She can’t POSSIBLY be innocent! She’s HILLARY F***ING CLINTON, for God’s sake! That’s proof enough for me!”
Which is ironic for a group of people who also go around saying “Blue Lives matter!” and demand restoration of law and order (which would imply due process, but why bother when you KNOW people are guilty? Like Hillary? Or black people who get shot by the police and therefore probably deserve it?).
6. Dangerous creeps are everywhere
But then the “Lock her up!” meme slots in neatly with Trump’s overall message in his acceptance speech (which he shouted for 75 minutes): (1) America is in the worst shape it’s ever been (no matter what actual data tells you), and that’s because it is surrounded (and has been heavily infiltrated) by dangerous people, most of whom just happen to be non-white (and liberal!), and that’s entirely the fault of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and (2) only Donald Trump can save you!
Or, as John Scalzi nicely summed it up:
• We’re all doomed by crime, immigrants and minorities;
• It’s all Hillary Clinton’s fault, let’s jail and/or kill her;
• Trump is great, Trump is the supreme leader, all hail Trump, details to come.
• It’s all Hillary Clinton’s fault, let’s jail and/or kill her;
• Trump is great, Trump is the supreme leader, all hail Trump, details to come.
Okay, Trump did try to be inclusive by pointing out how bad life is for black people economically (being shot by racist cops excluded, because that just doesn’t happen in America), and by saying that LGBTs shouldn’t be gunned down in nightclubs because of “hateful foreign ideology” (because certainly no one with hateful domestic ideology has ever supported the idea that LGBTs should be executed in the name of God). But again, the party that nominated him (to include his VP pick) has made it clear how they feel about homosex (it’s curable, for example), and while they may agree that mowing them down en masse is wrong, that’s about as far as they're willing to go in terms of outreach.
So that’s pretty much it – the GOP is officially the Loud Terrified Fucking Angry White Guy Party, and they’re out to fix America but good.
And again, that’s regardless of whether Donald wins. He’s got over 40% of the country on his side, and that’s not going to go away under a HillRod presidency. That's the opposition she'll be dealing with. If nothing else, the “Lock her up!” meme is a stark preview of the kind of cooperation she can expect from a GOP-led Congress. The motions for impeachment will probably start November 9th.
Unconventional,
This is dF
