Republican National Convention: A Motley Crew of Flakes, Frauds and Fanatics

The Republicans Blew a Chance to Put the Election in the Bag

The Republican Party could have buried the Democrats and nearly sewn up the election had they executed a sane convention. Instead, they breathed new life into their opponents by reminding Americans why they did not return Donald Trump to the White House in 2020, and why predicted Republican Red Waves fizzled.  

To his credit, Donald Trump tried to show magnanimity and a kinder, gentler side—for ten minutes. During his big, post-assassination speech, he offered America the tiniest of olive branches, saying, “the discord and division in our society must be healed,” and intoned, “We rise together. Or we fall apart.”

Then his contrived, unconvincing act fell apart.

Notably, his kind words were prewritten on the teleprompter, but the chronically undisciplined Trump diverged from the text, with his rosier vision for America vanishing into the ether. He tried to be different, but he just couldn’t help himself and the befuddled audience looked at him during his more tender moments, like he was Bob Dylan walking on-stage for the first time lugging an eclectic guitar, when they came to hear the acoustic hits.

So, the former president, deftly reading the room, ad-libbed by offering a dreary, dystopian, view of America based on a cascade of ugliness, bitterness and outright mistruths. We got a dose of the Big Lie, with bogus stolen election claims. There was an orgy of immigrant bashing. We suffered through the lies about skyrocketing violent crime, which is actually falling. He called the former Democratic House Speaker, “Crazy Nancy Pelosi”, which was particularly galling, because her husband, Paul, was nearly murdered by a hammer wielding MAGA fanatic.  

The fact checkers, God bless them, did all they could, but their task was like using a cheap, plastic umbrella to stay dry during a deadly monsoon.

In one glaring example, Trump said: “We will drill, baby, drill, and by doing that we will lead to a large-scale decline in prices.” The United States is actually producing significantly more crude oil today under the Biden administration than it did under the Trump administration. Perhaps Trump needs massive new drilling projects to supply his incessant gaslighting?

The ex-president went full dictator by giving a droning one hour and thirty-two-minute speech, which is longer than your average Hollywood movie. Such lengthy rants are usually associated with egotistical “strongmen”, such as Castro, Putin, Ghaddafi and Viktor Orban, the Hungarian tyrant who was given a full-throated attaboy by Trump.

You know what concerns me most about the RNC event? It was the cocky crowd that was a jubilant army of smarmy. The convention took on the frightening air of self-congratulatory, drape-measuring overconfidence, where the rapturous participants seemed near-certain of a landslide victory in November. Trump appeared equally self-assured, while haughtily greeting his groveling guests in his royal box. He glowered, jutted his chin out like Mussolini, and puffed his flabby chest out like a conquering Napoleon.

While the GOP has had a few good weeks, the nation is still sharply divided, the election is razor close, and if Biden is swiftly replaced, as he must be, it could offer a fresh wave of energy-infused hope to the Democrats.

How will gloating Republican voters, brimming with religious fervor, respond to losing on an Election Day they have been conditioned by Trump and right-wing media to believe they can’t lose?

Let’s just say the Secret Circus, eh, Service, better have its act together, because millions of Republicans believe they can’t lose unless the election has been rigged—despite polling that shows the election is still up for grabs. Many of these people are gun-toting fanatics with itchy trigger fingers.

A new Global Project Against Hate and Extremism report found, “calls for ‘civil war’ increased by more than 1,000 percent in the 24 hours after the [Trump] shooting. This phenomenon highlights the urgent need to confront the spread of misinformation and its potential to incite political violence.”

Trump wasn’t the only catastrophe for Republicans in Milwaukee. Another botched moment for the RNC was Hulk Hogan’s speech. At first, Hogan humored the crowd and TV audience when he ripped his shirt off and exposed his saggy, over-tanned muscles. What began as a shot of nostalgia and comic relief went off the rails when Hogan ominously roared, “The Trumpites will run wild” and “What are you going to do when all the Trump-o-maniacs run wild on you?”

Instead of a cuddly buffoon, Hogan instantly transformed himself into an angry insurrectionist, reminiscent of the bearded goons we saw ransack the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. He essentially promised that if Trump wins, we will have to fight against thugs like him to save our democracy. No, thanks.

Rev. Franklin Graham also despoiled his moment in the spotlight when he arrogantly ended his prayer to a religiously diverse group by sneering, “We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, king of kings.” Pastor Lorenzo Sewell also Christianized the event, at the exclusion of other faiths, and presented Trump as a God-like savior.

These over-the-top displays of fundamentalist right wing Christianity must have shocked the heavily manipulated Orthodox Jews at the convention, who just the day before were falsely feted with the insincere line that Republicans stand for, “Judeo/Christian values”.

Yeah, until these dupes aren’t needed politically, and radicalized, intolerant zealots can impose their Christian Nationalism, just like they did with their sectarian abortion bans. If these fanatics ever gain absolute power, the conservative Jews will feel as miserable, exploited and used as Jared and Ivanka looked as they sat stone-faced through the convention on Thursday night.   

A key goal of the RNC was to whitewash the extremism of the opportunistic vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance. But new information on Vance oozes out every day, highlighting his unfitness for office. The latest revelation from Pro-Publica, exposes Vance for telling students in a 2021 speech, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society. That’s a crazy conspiracy theory to a lot of very well-educated people in this country right now.”

Yes, this is considered crazy talk by most people who have gone to school and graduated—and, yes, it will terrify the rapidly growing number of voters who reject the medieval religious zealotry on ostentatious display at the Republican National Convention. In January, National Public Radio reported that this demographic is rapidly growing:

A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is "nothing in particular" – is now the largest cohort in the U.S. They're more prevalent among American adults than Catholics (23%) or evangelical Protestants (24%).

In the same forum, Vance told the impressionable students they should stand up for nuts like broadcaster Alex Jones of InfoWars. “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow,” Vance spewed, with a straight face.

Jones is the unscrupulous creep who exploited the Sandy Hook gun massacre by shamelessly defaming the victims and their families.

Alex Jones, who spread lies about the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that killed 26 first-graders and staffers, has dropped efforts to declare bankruptcy and agreed to liquidate his assets in order to finally start paying the nearly $1.5 billion in damages he owes the victims' families.

Jones lied on Infowars that the shooting in Newtown, Conn., which killed 20 first graders — 6- and 7-year-olds — and six teachers, never took place. In lawsuits filed against Jones, the victims' families said they were harassed and tormented by Jones' listeners as a result of his lies.

Does Vance truly believe that children should use this cruel con artist and sociopathic moral degenerate as a role model?

During his talk, Vance said, “If you listen to Rachel Maddow every night, the basic worldview that you have is that MAGA grandmas who have family dinners on Sunday and bake apple pies for their family are about to start a violent insurrection against this country.” Perhaps, Vance was projecting about the paranoid and violent inclinations of his own grandmother, who he called “Mamaw” during his RNC speech:  

And while we’re on the topic of grandparents, let me tell you another Mamaw story. Now, my mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq, in 2005. And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns. Now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house. Under her bed, in her closet. In the silverware drawer. And we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around so well. And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arms’ length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s American spirit.

How very heartwarming…had Vance stopped with the part about apple pie.

The entire RNC was a slick ruse to cover up the tragic truth that the Republican Party has become a cult of personality that represents America’s largest national security threat. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd neatly summed up the GOP’s attempted subterfuge to soften their dodgy agenda:

Trump’s convention tried to normalize the former president and gloss over his coup attempt and efforts to strip women of their rights, pushing the Heritage Foundation’s extreme Project 2025 to the side for the week.

Trump’s brand of casual cruelty crept in at spots. In his introductory video, there was a shot of Biden falling on the stairs of Air Force One. (The video ended with the bloody fist pump, of course.)

The Republicans failed in their efforts and came across as completely out of touch: Too religious and radical, on the wrong side of modern issues [climate change and human rights] and history [Eric Trump was apoplectic in his speech that Civil War traitors had their names stripped from military bases] and trapped in hermetically sealed bubble of foolishness and nuttery.

Their spin doctors repeatedly told us the GOP was united and many of the usual, credulous suckers in the media fell for the propaganda. But if this were true, where was former Vice President Mike Pence, or the Bush and Cheney clans, former presidential nominee Sen. Mitt Romney, the McCain family or the former generals, cabinet members or key aides who refuse to endorse the former president? This was the real story, not the celebratory clown car that arrived in Milwaukee.

What we witnessed this week was not a display of genuine unity. Instead, it was indisputable evidence of the unceremonious party purge that has taken place, with only the most callous, soulless opportunists and mindless loyalists remaining on the ever-shrinking island. That’s why we saw washed up celebrities like Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock, rather than the people who worked with Trump and best know how this unscrupulous, unprincipled madman operates.

If the Democrats can swiftly replace Biden, they are likely going to win this race. Even if the President unwisely remains, the Democrats might squeak out victory. The GOP convention failed spectacularly, by every measure, at persuading jittery suburbanites in swing states, that the Republican Party under Trump and Vance is safe, sane and secure.

Even if the convention gives Trump a light bump in the polls, as often occurs, it will be a temporary sugar high led by exuberant cult members. The rest of normal America, who looked on with interest to see if a newly chastened and reflective Trump could emerge, left unsatisfied and unconvinced of Trump’s conversion. The RNC sold the New Trump as “Saul on the Road to Damascus,” but the actual Trump on-stage looked more like Assad on the Damascus road to ruin.   

The Republicans had their moment to put the race away and they blew it. The Democrats live another day—let’s hope they don’t botch it.