The GOP Convention Becomes a Festival of Fear

Many of us anticipated that the Republican convention would be a cavalcade of batshit craziness  and the first night did not disappoint as it alternated between abject - and ridiculous - fear mongering to fawning over the "glorious leader," Donald Trump. Perhaps none of this should have been a surprised since the lead consultant to the convention produced “The Apprentice” for Trump. Some of the commentary was so over the top as to be utterly absurd to anyone sane and not subsumed in the cult of Trump.  Jim Jordan - who looked away while male athletes were being sexually abused - insanely accused Democrats of not allowing Americans to go to church. Meanwhile, most of us going about our daily lives and not obsessed with perceived lost privilege and a desire to take the country back to the 1950's could not recognize the nation as described by the list of extremist speakers.  Indeed, if we have any real fear it is that we will be infected with Covid-19 by Trumpists who refuse to follow CDC guidelines and wear masks. If anyone is a threat to western civilization, it is the science and knowledge denying Visigoths of the GOP base.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the fear mongering and insanity.  Here are highlights:

President Trump over the weekend said he expected a “very uplifting and positive” convention. Uh-oh. Dude must have gotten into the hydroxychloroquine again.

The Republican National Convention on its opening day was as uplifting as the apocalypse, as positive as perdition.

“The woke-topians,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) warned, “will disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door, and the police aren’t coming when you call.”

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News personality and current girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., informed the convention that Democrats “want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom.

Midway through this rage-fest, the convention went to news footage of violence and destruction in the streets and bleeped-out obscenities — then cut to the wood-paneled interior of the mansion of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who were charged with firearms violations after they threatened racial-justice demonstrators with a pistol and military-style weapon.

The pair, personal injury lawyers both, spoke about the “out-of-control mob” and the “Marxist liberal activist” and “radicals” who menaced them by walking past their house — which “could just as easily happen to any of you who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around our country.” . . . “Make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”

It was a veritable festival of fear — made all the more intriguing because it was delivered by the incumbent president’s party, much of it from an ornate hall near the White House, the Mellon Auditorium, named for a robber baron. Four years ago, Trump pledged to end “American carnage.” Now he’s asking for another four years to put an end to all the additional American carnage he created in his first four years. The difference is his leadership has turned the dystopian America Trump pictured into more of a reality.

It served up implausible testimonies about what a fabulous job Trump has done handling the pandemic. The Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, spoke with a straight face about Trump’s “reverence for the office of the presidency.”

The party officially resolved to “adjourn without adopting a new platform.” Instead, the party made its convention into a virtual assembly of the cult of Trump. The president, after his afternoon appearance in Charlotte, appeared in two prime-time segments of the convention on Monday to receive praise from virus survivors, health workers and former hostages, and he is expected to speak Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, too. His wife, four of his children, a daughter-in-law and various Trump pals are also in the lineup. The lead consultant to the convention produced “The Apprentice” for Trump and was a judge on Trump’s Miss Universe pageant.

But the celebration of Trump was tedious — even Fox News cut away from live coverage — and the rage and dystopia invariably overtook the scripted calls for “hope.”

Charlie Kirk, head of a conservative group who has partnered with Jerry Falwell Jr. at Liberty University, proclaimed that “the American way of life is being dismantled by a group of bitter, deceitful, vengeful activists.” He cast Trump as “the bodyguard of Western civilization.”

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley warned of a “socialist left” bringing “anarchy.” A Cuban American, Maximo Alvarez, accused Democrats of siding with “anarchy and communism.” And Donald Trump Jr. warned of “Beijing Biden” (“the Loch Ness monster of the swamp”) encouraging tyranny, illegal immigrants, rioting, looting, vandalism, torch-bearing mobs and “radicals who want to drag us into the dark.

 Amazing how Donald Jr. confused his father's torch bearing supporters for Democrats. Perhaps he should speak with the residents of Charlottesville so he can set the record straight.