The spectacle
Opinion by Team Thomas
the 2020 political conventions…
The two national political conventions in the 2020 race for the White House could not have conducted more starkly different coronations of their respective standard-bearers. The Democrats tried to cast the next four years as recoverable, while the Republicans tried to present four years to be feared.
The two speeches were also told in other ways. The former Vice President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, delivered his message in about one-half hour. At the same time, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, had his acceptance over seventy minutes.
Nevertheless, the Republicans used their convention to solidify their base further, as did the Democrats with their base. What is up for grabs now is the Independent vote, which represents approximately one-third of the American electorate today.
In 2016, more Independents supported Donald J. Trump’s candidacy. Will they do the same in 2020, or will those same Independents defect to Mr. Trump’s challenger, former Vice President Biden?
President Trump ended the Republican National Convention Thursday evening with a hair-raising keynote address ripping his general election opponent, calling into question Mr. Biden’s physical health, China interactions, and lack of response to the COVID-19 crisis even though Mr. Biden has not held government office during the pandemic, and Socialist philosophy overall.
No Policy Platform Needed
For the first time in convention history, since the party was founded in 1854, the Republicans passed on the opportunity to adopt a meaningful policy platform for their vision in governing the nation should Mr. Trump win re-election on November 3, other than to say they are 100 percent in favor of whatever the President wants for the country. Interestingly, The Trump campaign worked to portray the current President of the United States as a better person than the man we see in public.
Surprisingly, Donald Trump, Jr., and his siblings, Ivanka, Eric, and Tiffany, did not attest to this different person in private. Barron Trump was missing from the festivities. The Trumps chose instead to denigrate the Democrats, the media, and much of the institutional world. Donald Jr.’s partner, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality, ranted off the deep end in her pitch to voters. They all loaded up the not-factual claims that kept pundits busy for the entire week fact-checking their statements.
The Democrats, seeking to project a common purpose for the first time in many conventions, attempted to portray Mr. Biden as the man you believe you see in public. Many of the primary candidates the now-nominee vanquished lauded praise on the former Vice President for his humanity and compassion. Still, many went out of their way to argue that Mr. Trump is not the man for the season. This was a point former First Lady Michelle Obama drove home with a sharp stake and blunt message.
Vice President Mike Pence was re-nominated to join Mr. Trump on his ticket, while Mr. Biden selected California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris to round out his play card. Senator Harris is a first for political tickets as the first woman of color nominated for Vice President by a major political party.
The Showcase Showcased Reality in the Parties
The DNC showcased its former presidents, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, along with recent Hillary Clinton and John Kerry nominees. The RNC did not invite its sole living former president, George W. Bush, or its previous nominee, Senator Mitt Romney.
Both parties were forced to present their national conventions virtually thanks to the health danger COVID-19 presents to many participants. The Democrats conducted most of their virtual convention from Biden’s home state of Delaware rather than the selected city of Milwaukee. At the same time, Mr. Trump switched from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, back to Washington, D.C., for the most part.
Mr. Trump and the GOP complicated matters, however, by choosing to use the White House as their primary venue for the RNC Convention, an act many are alleging represents numerous violations of the Hatch Act. Enacted in 1939, the Hatch Act prohibits executive-branch civil service employees of the federal government from engaging in some forms of political activity. The President and the Vice President are exempted, however. Neither political party has used the White House as a campaign venue.
Time will tell whether either convention persuaded the voters of America to vote for that party’s candidate.
The challenges for both parties, therefore, are clear:
Challenges for the Challenger
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will have to convince skeptical Independents and at least ten percent of the Republican voters in America that they can govern more effectively and more rationally than Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
The Democrats are perceived to be tilting far left politically and more readily embracing extreme Progressivism and emerging Socialism. Have those extreme views in the Democratic Party become the norm, or are they still the exception?
The Green New Deal was highly controversial in America in 2020. While Biden and Harris have distanced themselves from the effort, influential rising party members, like freshman New York Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, have backed the party into a corner to support the legislative effort. Is that an excellent legislative accomplishment for America?
Was Hunter Biden complicit in earning millions of dollars in board fees while serving on a Ukrainian corporation’s governing body? Did he earn money from Chinese sources while his father was Vice President? Did he travel with his father to China to exact these benefits aboard Air Force Two?
Could Biden have done more in the war on cancer? How about in controlling COVID-19?
Can Joe Biden and Kamala Harris overcome and successfully reverse the damage they say President Trump and his Administration have done to American global leadership?
Challenges for the Current Occupant
Donald Trump and the GOP have their work cut out for them as well.
First, President Trump must overcome the knowledge that he did little to stave off the coronavirus in the early days of the spread in America. He called it a hoax. He said it would miraculously disappear. He said deaths would be limited. None of that proved true, and the nation shut down for several weeks, badly impacting the U.S. economy. COVID-19 deaths now surpass 174,000, with more than 5 million infected. Hospitals and medical personnel have been stretched beyond the endurance limit to fight the disease on our front lines. Moreover, Mr. Trump and the White House have consistently failed to develop a national strategy for effectively combating the virus. They rushed to open states for business too soon and now have to rush students back into school under threat of federal funding if they do not comply.
Second, the economy is sputtering even though the stock market is soaring. The stock market is not the U.S. economy. Twenty-eight million Americans are still on unemployment benefits, and the $600 monthly stimulus check support evaporated a month ago with no promise that Congress or the White House would come to terms with how to help Americans cope with a virus financially they had nothing to do with. Seriously, delinquent mortgage payments are soaring, and rental and homeowner evictions will be a pandemic by late Fall.
Third. Social unrest is plaguing the nation following what appears from the evidence to be police brutality of George Floyd. Cities are burning, Black Lives Matter is running through the streets protesting both peacefully and violently, and Mr. Trump is trying to blame the Democrats for something that is on his presidential watch. Moreover, Mr. Trump has fed the flames of passion by tear-gassing protestors, raising a Bible in Lafayette Park, and cracking down violently on those who expressed the need for change in America. Mr. Trump has embraced volatile and dangerous organizations like White Nationalists, QAnon, and more. He believed Charlottesville had good people on both sides of the domestic terror.
Fourth, Russia has targeted American soldiers for death in hostile countries where our troops are trying to keep the peace and has allowed his soldiers to fight with our guys, injuring quite a few in the meantime. No comment from the White House. No criticism of Mr. Putin. No response from the President to these attacks on American soldiers.
Fifth, President Trump has lied a documented 20,000-plus times over his nearly four years in office, making it difficult for Americans to know whether they can trust their President’s words. Mr. Trump has made all sorts of outrageous claims and statements, some of which are the Obama White House bugged Trump Tower.
Sixth, the President has purposefully undermined the credibility of our institutions, such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, media, churches, UN, NATO, Defense Department, Department of Justice, Congress, and more. He has also undermined vital strategic relationships with traditional post-World War II allies like the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Australia, France, and Germany.
Seventh, Mr. Trump has lorded over a budget deficit that exceeds one trillion dollars annually and has ballooned to more than $25 trillion since taking office in 2017. Fiscal restraint and responsibility have been absent from the party that made its reputation as a good steward of the federal budget.
Eighth, immigration is a disaster in the nation, with families torn apart by the President’s handling of their migration to the United States, their asylum applications, their applications to join families, DACA, and many more aspects of the traditional path to citizenship.
Ninth, scandals have pockmarked the Trump Administration through lawsuits involving the release of his taxes, the New York Attorney General criminal investigation of the Trump Organization, the dissolution of Trump’s foundation for mischief, payments to porn stars and Playboy Playmates not to disclose affairs in his current marriage, the convictions and imprisonments of key campaign aides, his Impeachment for the Ukrainian Affair, the Mueller Report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, firings of Inspectors General for investigating federal wrongdoing in the Administration at various agencies, and unfounded allegations that the Obama White House bugged Trump Tower.
Tenth, campaign promises to make Mexico pay for the border wall, or pledges to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions from losing their critical insurance coverage went poof in the night. Will any of these broken promises matter to America?
The President’s use of the White House to stage his campaign acceptance speech is mind-numbing. It was not proper, and we do not believe it is legal. But, then again, Mr. Trump has a hefty track record of ignoring the U.S. Constitution and American rule of law because these transgressions take time to litigate and correct.
The Trump speech was full of falsehoods, exaggerations, and questionable promises, such as the promise that there will absolutely, positively be a virus “crushing” vaccine by the end of the year. If only we could re-elect Mr. Trump, it could be added. The speech was revisionist and lacked viable resolutions to problems that have peppered Mr. Trump’s first term in office.
The stagecraft of what looked like a thousand American flags and the fireworks spectacle over the Washington Monument were unprecedented and troubling. In the age of the raging pandemic, some 1,500 guests sat shoulder-to-shoulder, inches apart from one another on the White House lawn, maskless. The virus threat was invisible indeed.
Mr. Trump spent the four days of his convention running against the record he had earned over the past four years. He is for protecting pre-existing, but he is suing to eliminate those protections; he is for the Second and First Amendments, but he wants you to use those rights according to his wishes; he is for law and order, but he likes to thumb his nose at law and order; he is the best friend to Black America, more than Lincoln was, but he does not have Black America’s support for the effort; the Socialists own the Democrats but ignore the White Nationalists who control his events and influence his government; and, on it goes.
If anything, the 2016 election and the 2020 election so far make an excellent case that it might be time for a credible third-party candidate to make their way onto the American stage and save us from the paralyzing spectacle we experienced these past two weeks.
Mr. Trump pounded into his acceptance audience before the Klieg lights roasting the White House, saying this was the most critical election in U.S. history. On that point, Mr. Trump may not have been exaggerating at all.