So we made it.
We finally made it to the end of the Republican National Convention.
I was talking yesterday on the bonus show with Pat and just with people in my personal
life that I can remember no political event like the 2020 Republican National Convention,
which so exhausted me from politics in general because it was so disgusting and so depraved,
so lie riddled, that it's an impossibility to even keep up with the amount of dishonesty
and lies.
And yesterday, it was all capped off by Donald Trump's speech officially accepting the nomination.
He did it at the White House with 15 hundred people in an audience.
No masks, barely a mask, no testing in the middle of a pandemic.
Completely irresponsible in every way.
The imagery included sirens in the entire background as a soundtrack to the speech because
of massive protests that broke out outside of the White House.
And as you can see, if you look at the picture of
this crowd at the White House, it doesn't look like the type of speech that would be
given accepting a nomination during a pandemic.
Questions about whether it's even legal to do this at the White House using the White
House as a political prop.
And, of course, the prudence of using the central of having such a large crowd during
a pandemic, certainly questionable at best.
Now, the entire thing was a fascistic nightmare, with Donald Trump continuing to paint the
left as socialist Marxist agitators.
If you've taken a look at Joe Biden's policy platform or the last 30 years of Joe Biden's
public policy positions, there is really nothing that could be described as socialistic or
Marxist in any way.
But this is the way that they are framing it.
Trump going on for 70 minutes, starting to have sort of the feeling of these never ending
Fidel Castro's speeches.
Those would go on for hours.
This only felt like hours.
And Donald Trump's orange face starting to melt during the event.
And I said yesterday, you know, Melania's accent is really beneath us.
Donald Trump's physical appearance is part of his narcissistic, delusional, complex.
I think it is very much on this side of the line.
And it's part of what Trump imagines as the idea of Trump that people want.
The idea that people need to see him in this particular way, this bizarre shade of orange,
I don't know if we call it ocher, what we call it, this 70 minute droning speech.
And what's interesting, as we get into the clips, as you might realize, that he's speaking
so slowly that even though the speech was long time wise, it's very low on actual content
because the words per minute are extremely low.
It is the type of speech that you would do if you have these sort of authoritarian tendencies
of wanting the crowd to see you as this great savior, but yet not really having very much
to say.
Let's start.
Donald Trump actually sort of rubbing the noses of the audience into the fact that he's
using the White House as a political prop.
Take a look.
This November, we must turn the page forever on this failed political class.
The fact is, I'm here.
What's the name of that building?
But I'll say it differently.
The fact is we're here and they're not.
So, as I mentioned before, are arguably against the law to use the White House for a political
speech like this.
There aren't going to be repercussions.
I don't even know how much time we should spend wasting.
We should waste on that because it will be a waste.
The opportunity is removing Trump in November.
He's not going to have any consequences for using the White House in this way.
Then Donald Trump really just not making sense throughout the 70 minute speech, becoming
even more and more orange, his face looking like it was sort of melting, kind of like
the Joker in the 1989 Batman film and making less and less sense in terms of his speech.
Here is Trump saying that he has pioneered the fatality rate on the virus thanks to advances.
We have pioneered the fatality rate.
And you look at it and you look at the numbers, really unclear what that means.
And then also really unclear, but far scarier.
Trump talking about putting so-called patriotic education back in schools as I dropped my
Sharpie.
Take a listen.
Take a listen to this.
Are under construction.
We will fully restore patriotic education to our schools and always protect.
We will always, always protect free speech on college campuses.
So that actually made the crowd momentarily seem alive in the middle of these endless
monotones.
But that's really scary.
Patriotic education back in schools.
If you've got a Republican telling you they're going to make education patriotic, you're
right to be scared and concerned.
Trump continuing this very strange, monotonous delivery.
Here is another section of it.
It's not clear Trump believes what he's saying.
It's not clear Trump even understands what he's saying.
But he is saying it in this strange monotone and sparked a new age of scientific discovery.
We set the trends in art and music, radio and film, sport and literature.
And we did it all with style and confidence and flair, because that is who we are whenever
a way of life was threatened.
Our heroes answered the call from Yorktown to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima.
I mean, the delivery couldn't possibly be less inspiring.
So in addition to the duration, which was far too long, reminding me of Fidel Castro,
the complete lack of of energy in terms of communicating belief.
Also reminding me of of just other authoritarians who just drone on and on and on.
At one point, Aaron Rouper pointed out on Twitter, the delivery almost sounds like a
Gregori and chanting.
It's a very unusual way to deliver a speech.
Take a look.
And America against all threats and protect America against all dangers, we will lead
America into new frontiers of ambition.
And when someone speaks in this way, there is no way to discern a narrative.
There is no way to sort of craft an arc.
And in fact, when the cameras would pan to the crowd, people were on their phones.
People were talking to each other.
A couple of people looked like they were sleeping because this is not how you deliver a speech
and tell a story, whether it's a good story or not, whether it's an honest story or not.
That's it.
This is just not how you engage a crowd.
Then again, Donald Trump citing veterans choice as an accomplishment.
Remember, Veterans Choice was signed into law by Barack Obama in 2014.
We also passed V.A. accountability and V.A. choice.
Our great veterans were taking care of our veterans.
This actually is something that many speakers have been doing.
Ivanka Trump, who introduced the president yesterday, also touted veterans choice as
an accomplishment, despite it being something Barack Obama did.
And then as the evening wore on, not only did Donald Trump's face continue to melt.
Not only was he more and more visibly sweaty, gripping the podium almost like he needed
to in order to stay upright.
He became increasingly unable to speak.
Tried to say, we are going to end our reliance.
Instead said our resilience and then abandoned the entire sentence change.
And we will end our resilience for bad things.
We will go right after China.
We will not rely on them one bit.
Donald Trump still unable to say Kaseem Solar, Marni's name one terrorist by far Kassem Solar
mean.
And the context of bringing up solar money is actually interesting because a number of
speak.
Did this within seconds of each other, other speakers and Donald Trump throughout the week
bragged about how Donald Trump kept us out of and got us out of wars and bragged about
bombing Iran at the same time.
It's Orwellian doublespeak.
You like one thing, you focus on that.
That doesn't sound so good.
Well, Trump said the opposite.
30 seconds later, you can focus on that instead.
It's a sort of something for everybody type of approach.
A Donald Trump misreading proudly as profoundly my fellow Americans tonight with a heart full
of gratitude and boundless optimism.
I profoundly accept this nomination for president of the United States.
And then by this point, Donald Trump simply sleepwalking and sleep talking, finally done,
70 plus minutes in his face, has completely melted.
And this is the wrap up.
And what you'll notice is it's been monotone for so long.
You you couldn't tell until the last second that it was finally the wrap up.
There were multiple moments where it seemed like maybe the rap was starting, but just
droning on and on and on, people on their phones, people sleeping, people maybe passing
coronavirus back and forth.
This was the the final wrap up after Samit, 70 minutes of sleep talking.
And on November 3rd, we will make America safer.
We will make America stronger.
We will make America prouder.
And we will make America greater than ever before.
I am very, very proud to be the nominee of the Republican Party.
I love you all.
God bless you.
And God bless America.
So a bunch of different thoughts here.
First of all, this was really fascistic and authoritarian in a lot of different ways,
the way that he is couching the opposition as something which, of course, they are not
socialists, Marxists.
Donald Trump continually not making sense, making the case that the United States is
really chaotic right now.
There's crime everywhere.
It's crazy.
So you should reelect Trump.
Well, Trump's president right now and of course, the argument would be, well, the chaos is
in Democrat run cities.
I'm going to deal with that later on in today's program.
And if you elect Trump, he will stop the chaos.
Well, he's been president for four years and he hasn't stopped it, at least as far as he's
concerned.
So that narrative makes no sense.
Simultaneously, the narrative of berating China and Democrats and who knows who else
for the virus,
but doing it at an event with fifteen hundred people sitting six inches away from each other
with no masks, not having been tested for corona virus, that's also completely illogical.
And then Tom Nichols had a very interesting commentary on the broader optics of the speech.
Nichols tweeted something like, this is his same rally speech that Trump gave.
But with a dramatic background, the visual component of the White House.
And Tom Nichols said, this is why you're not supposed to use the White House as a political
prop because in a different venue.
This is much more obviously Trump's same rally stump speech ranting, but with the background
of the White House, it lends it more credibility than it deserves.
And it's exactly why you shouldn't be giving speeches like this at the White House.
I thought that was a very good point.
Last thing, the insistence
on Marxists and socialists that the entire convention, but in particular Trump yesterday
claimed to be running against can claim represent Joe Biden's views.
If you know anything about Joe Biden, you know Joe Biden is no Marxist or even close
to it.
But what that is increasingly code for is that the platform of Joe Biden and the Democratic
Party right now is one that recognizes that working people who live paycheck to paycheck
are disgusted with the murderous failure of this administration on corona virus because
that's what it's been and are responsible.
The Trump administration further, dramatically worse than it needed to be economic situation
as a result.
So when they talk about Marxists and socialists, those are fear mongering terms to take attention
away from the fact that this administration has failed the very population that they claimed
would were going to be doing great.
Which
is just average working class people, inequality up chaos from the standpoint of reacting to
protests over police brutality and embarrassing laughing stock of a corona virus response
where countries have stopped laughing at us.
Now they pity us.
Now they're scared.
And Donald Trump wrapping it all together, fear mongering about Marxists and socialists
while using the White House as a political prop to make people sit there for more than
70 minutes of his monotone droning in one of the most authoritarian ways that we've
seen him do it.
This is really scary stuff.
And unfortunately, if you've been watching this week, you know, it could work to get
him reelected.
Let me know what you think.
I'm on Twitter at
David Pakman.