Three Things to Take Away from the GOP Convention.....Plus a Breakdown of Trump’s Last Speech.
In what is already proving to be the most controversial presidential election season to date, the Republican National Convention comes to a close after delivering more spectacle than the previous Olympics, more outcry than ‘Deflate-gate’ and more whimper-instead-of-bang than the last episode of ‘American Idol’ (my opinion). Though many people will be happy to get at least a few days of the ‘normal’ news reporting before the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia next week, questions about how GOP nominee-no longer presumptive, Donald Trump, will help “make America great again” remain unanswered. Why, you ask? Because the convention was too filled with state delegates bragging unnecessarily about what their state’s most redeeming qualities are and who their colleagues were casting their vote for (not always for Trump, by the way), wannabe-First Lady Melania Trump’s Plagiarism-gate drama (people still talking about that, two days after it happened), Chris Christie’s attempt to pretend he’s the next Supreme Court justice and ‘try’ Hillary Clinton for faults, many of which were not actually hers while others aren’t even considered criminal by either the Department of State or the FBI, the unnecessary trotting out of Benghazi survivors, the countering of #BlackLivesMatter by a black police chief, and finally the Ted Cruz Show. Its pretty comical and pathetic when you consider that the themes for the past two nights had nothing to do with ANY of the just-listed lowlights. Tuesday night’s theme was ‘Make America Safe Again’, while Wednesday night’s theme was ‘Make America Work Again’.
As is typical of GOP conventions, the top people in the Republican Party spent more time attacking the POTUS, FLOTUS and former Secretary of State and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton than they did outlining what their party, through the personage of Trump, would do to make the lives of the ‘downtrodden’ better, or make America safer. If they had devoted half their time actually laying down concrete guidelines for what they planned to do and spent less time attacking remorselessly, they may have convinced the wavering Independents and moderate Republicans to throw their support behind the Trump-Pence banner. Instead, they may have scared those groups they need into either staying home and not voting (second worst outcome), voting third party and potentially harming Trump’s chances (third worst outcome) or commit the GOP’s ultimate nightmare and go straight into the arms of Hillary Clinton. It did not help that the sycophants within the Trump circle sung praises about the man they initially brushed off as a joke candidate but quickly fell in with when he made his meteoric rise last summer. Men such as former presidential candidate and New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions used two different approaches to propping up their hero, Sessions by stating his unequivocal support for his “friend” Trump and Christie by conducting his joke of a mock trial of Clinton.
So you must now be wondering about those three things to take away from the GOP Convention. Its obvious conservatives and especially Trump sycophants will get different things out of the three-night spectacle, but for Democrats and skeptical independents the three main things to take out of the convention are as follows:
[b]Plagiarism is STILL a crime[/b]: Yes, plagiarism is still a crime even after high school and college. The Trump campaign staff should’ve realized this when they formulated the speech delivered by Melania Trump Tuesday night. Instead, whether out of disrespect for Michelle Obama or due to a major time crunch (or both), they yanked heavily from the Obama 2008 speech, attempting to reword it just enough to make it sound more like a Melania Trump original. When the speeches were played side-by-side, the plagiarism was revealed, yet Paul Manafort-the man now in charge of managing the Trump campaign apparatus-played the old ‘denial denial denial’ game, even going up against CNN’s Chris Cuomo in a not-so-veiled critique of the “liberal media” and the perceived refusal to cover the failings (what few there are) of Hillary Clinton (Cuomo was relentless and scored a victory in the sparring match, forcing Manafort to bow out in disgrace). It was only during the day on Thursday that the Trump camp finally admitted they had committed the cardinal sin that causes college students to get expelled, yet they didn’t fire the speechwriter.
[b]The Republican Court[/b]: Yes, I said it, the Republican Court, because only conspiracy-seeing, tinfoil hat wearing Republicans can continue to state in no uncertain terms that Hillary Clinton is guilty for even being born, let alone being Secretary of State, or former First Lady, or senator from New York. Led by the wannabe-Soprano governor and former presidential candidate Chris Christie, they held a kangaroo court on the stage and among the delegates and audience of conservative tinfoils, declaring Hillary guilty of Email-gate (despite the Justice Department and FBI finding no evidence of [i]criminal[/i] wrongdoing), Benghazi-gate (again, with no evidence to back their claims, only strawman explanations such as the information being deleted), Russia-gate (who really knew Vladimir Putin would spit in the hand offered in friendship by invading both Georgia-the republic not the state-and Ukraine?), and every created -gate dreamed of by people with more time on their hands than they know what to do with (how about STOP WATCHING F*X NEWS!). Christie promoted the call to “lock her up” after naming both real, unproven “crimes” and the imaginary crimes such as being married to former president Bill Clinton despite his false ‘abuse’ of Monica Lewinsky. Thankfully, late-night comics assauged our outrage and shock by producing their own mock trials of Christie using the real allegations stemming from his infamous ‘Bridge-gate’ to devastating effect (hope he was watching).
[b]Ted Cruz’s “F.U!” to Donald Trump[/b]: Amazingly, the one former presidential candidate with the cajones to actually make loud and clear his disgust of Trump is also the one nobody really likes. Ted Cruz was slated to be a guest speaker and expected by the Trump camp to endorse his rival and successful candidate. What Trump loyalists and sycophants got instead was one of the most shocking and divisive statements ever, when Cruz called for voters to [i]vote their conscience[/i]. If ever there was a clear non-endorsement of Trump, that was it. It was nothing short of a big [i]”F.U!”[/i] to the man who almost lost to Cruz midway through the primaries. As expected, Cruz got blowback from his statement, especially from the Trump clan. Trump Jr., on ‘F*X and Friends’ even went so far as to state quite bluntly “we don’t want Cruz’s endorsement”. Cruz was booed from the stage, even by fellow Texans in the delegation who had urged him to bury the hatchet with Trump and endorse him. At an event the next day, Cruz defended his lack of endorsement of Trump by explaining that he would never support a man who had insulted both his father and his wife. Not that surprising considering that Heidi Cruz had to be escorted from the Convention when angry Trump sycophants began chanting “Goldman Sachs!” at her, putting her at risk while her husband was facing the wrath of both the Texas and especially the New York delegation. Many now believe that Cruz, by delivering his F.U pipebomb to Trump may have been setting himself up as a likely presidential contender in 2020, though at the same time its likely his wet-dream of entering the Oval Office as president in 2020 may have also been put on a life-support machine due to his abrogating the pledge he and the other 17 GOP candidates had to sign before they could begin campaigning. Cruz, of course, remains unapologetic.
Of course, there were other lowlights from the Convention, such as former child actor Scott Baio (of ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Charles in Charge’ fame) defending his meme calling Hillary Clinton “a c*nt”, One of the hillbilly stars from ‘Duck Dynasty’ accusing some Americans of “wanting free stuff”, Sessions accusing President Obama of blaming the police for rising crime, and the co-chair of the RNC accusing former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault. But while these other lowlights will be talked about for some time to come, its the three major lowlights that will go down in RNC and GOP history as the most controversial, most talked-about and most embarassing of all time. How the RNC will address these many lowlights and prepare to change rules in preparation for 2020 will be interesting to see, though they may now also need to conduct another “autopsy of the Party” come January 20th 2017.
As for Donald Trump’s final convention speech, while plagiarism was avoided this time around, the clear truth is that Trump doesn’t see himself as a presidential candidate. He sees himself more as a god...or more to the point, sees himself AS GOD HIMSELF. Following in his usual practice of ‘say little about what you will do for the country and instead attack both the current POTUS and the Democratic nominee for the office’, he viciously attacked both Clinton and President Obama, laying the blame for all the nation’s shortcomings and the international issues on both. This is really unfair to Hillary, who simply continued the policies of her predecessors from previous presidential administrations, Powell and Condoleezza Rice especially. The attacks on President Obama, as always, lack any real substantial evidence, especially when given the fact that the information Trump cited in his speech dated back to 2000...eight years before anyone outside Illinois had even heard of Barack Obama (which by the way, conservatives, would place the blame squarely on your man, G.W.Bush. Let that sink in for a while). Given that Politifact has awarded Trump with more ‘Pants on Fire’ ratings than any of the other former GOP presidential candidates-even Ted Cruz, it should be no surprise by now that Trump is entirely out of his element in the commercial field and forced-whether by his own choice or the manipulation of the Koch Brothers-to ply the unfamiliar waters of politics.
As said earlier, the many minor and major lowlights of the Convention, combined with the overreaching ego of the businessman-wanting-to-be-president made for a week of craziness that many in the Republican Party, especially Chairman Reince Priebus himself, will be happy to put behind them. Of course, thanks to Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton has a new weapon in her arsenal in the form of her new hashtag [i]”Vote Your Conscience”[/i], not to mention the track record of Mike Pence’s governorship of Indiana with its attacks on gay rights and attempts to defund the state’s Planned Parenthood (not to mention a new controversial law just passed which requires mothers of aborted or deceased fetuses to pay the costs for the funerals of their own babies). It is very certain that Hillary Clinton will use these nuggets to her advantage in her attacks against Trump and Pence, and hence make the next four months interesting.
