Big surprise.
I was horrified by Donald Trump’s hourlong+ Republican-convention-capping lie-a-thon bordering-on-fascist speech Thursday night.
It kept me up late, and I’m old, so I’ll just give a few excerpts from my notes of some of the weirdest things he said.
- Overview reactions: Trump seems desperate, more ready — even than usual — to lie like crazy, take risks, and try to do several weird things and say some crazy — er — poop. Including:
- brag like crazy about what a great president he has already been, based on very questionable assertions (examples: He claimed to have “built the greatest economy in the history of the world” and “secured for the first time, American energy independence”);
- lie like crazy (the border wall, he claimed, will soon be completed and is exceeding all expectations);
- pander to the base (as usual);
- violate important longstanding norms of proper conduct (including holding a campaign rally on the White House lawn, where he stood against a backdrop of at least 30 American flags (I couldn’t get an accurate count);
- find some excuse to mention Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davy Crockett, and Buffalo Bill;
- scare the country that Biden is a socialist, or perhaps more likely, a socialist tool;
- assert that Democrats “believe that America is a depraved nation,” while Republicans consider it “the greatest and most exceptional nation in the history of the world”;
- exaggerate the awfulness of his opponent’s record (“we have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years“);
- exaggerate the potential awfulness of a Biden victory (“China will own our country if Joe Biden gets elected”);
- blame China for COVID (I believe he also blamed Biden, but it wasn’t clear for what) while claiming credit for several brilliant accomplishments to beat the virus at home (convalescent plasma), without acknowledging that we have the most cases in the world;
- claim bizarrely that, contrary to his own great success on COVID, Biden’s approach would be “surrender”;
- assert, without details, that the United States is on track to have an effective COVID vaccine “this year”;
- promise that as long as he is president the words “under God” will remain in the Pledge of Allegiance;
- promise in his second term to land the first woman on the moon, and the first man on Mars;
- frame the election as a question of “whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens;”
- display his ignorance on many topics, while claiming brilliance.
I’ll follow up on that last one (ignorance married to self-importance) with this one detail I noted. Immediately after referring to Abraham Lincoln, whom Trump likes to talk about ever since he discovered the obscure (incredibly well-known) fact that Lincoln was a Republican, Trump called the upcoming election “the biggest election U.S. history,” which was just one of many assertions that he has been an unimaginably historically awesome president already, and that Biden, either because he’s a socialist or a socialist tool, would be a unimaginable disaster.
I could, of course, list more items. It was a long speech.
Trump read off the teleprompter for most of the hour, although he’s very bad at it and is much more entertaining when he ad libs more. He’s good at feeling the crowd and figuring out what will rile them up. Teleprompter Trump is wooden, although his speechwriters gave him good apocalyptic material. In the second half, he gained confidence and seemed to riff more.
I’d say the election of John Adams, which established the norm of peaceful transition of power, to be the most consequential election in US history. Given Trump’s proclivity for ignoring established norms, and his hints at not conceding if he loses, this may indeed become the most significant election in US history.
As Trumpolini’s admirers and zealots openly say, “norms were made to be broken!”
Laws, too!
This election could be just as consequential by breaking the norm of peaceful transition of power. (There was a time when I would consider that statement pure hyperbole, not anymore.)
Also, I can predict – with almost complete certainty – that a covid-19 vaccine will be announced in early November.
Sounds like a run through of his usual braindead talking points, with heavy emphasis the newly rolled-out “Law and Order!” product line, researched as the latest greatest hope for a return to profitability in the executive suites of the CEO’s failed TrumpAmerica, Inc. And a great deal of misdirection on this year’s disastrous “Covid-19” elderly breakfast food line (personally backed by the CEO!), which has led the company to the brink of bankruptcy and is the subject of an explosion of products liability lawsuits….
But mostly it was the 1789 Constitution’s closest glimpse of what an evolving American fascist authoritarian regime looks like, with the tin-plated autocrat brazenly using the nation’s political infrastructure to bolster his imagined authority, strength and potency, while trying to wrap himself in America’s greatest (albeit long past) success stories, of all absurdity. The sea of flags looked like Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. This is where “conservatism” has led us, to no intelligent person’s great surprise.
The question now, of course, is does a Biden administration abide by the Hatch Act or flout it totally, as Trumpolini and his criminal and lawbreaking co-conspirators have done? We know what should be the answer under the dictum “One must fight fire with fire”.
I wonder about the cognitive dissonance by repubs who believe trump that America under Biden will only unleash chaos, when during the Obama/Biden years, we saw none of that including strong economic growth after the devastating economic collapse given us by bush/repubs.
It’s really disturbing reading and hearing the deceit and lies from trump and this repub party at their convention…and his followers believe them
I now understand how Hitler came to power ina democracy.
I watched for a couple minutes, threw up a little in the back of my mouth, and turned off the TV to read instead…
Two of my favorites from among his “speakos” or “reados” last night were that liberals live in “waldorf” homes (which was supposed to be “walled off,” I guess) and that Americans will “end our resilience” when I think he was supposed to say we will “end our resistance” or some other negative word like that.
Eric Black never disappoints in his writing to his left wing liberal progressive Democrat audience. He knows they like a balanced meal of pablum and red meat…
Or maybe facts.
Yes we do enjoy it. Too bad you don’t have some news sources that fawn all over the great leader; continually push an agenda aimed to keeping white, aggrieved folks all riled up; and feature wacko’s offering up ideas that contradict science knowing they’ll get the attention of a desperate buffoon. Oh, wait … maybe you do.