Notes on the Republican Convention: Day 1
I made a promise, and I keep my promises. Let’s look at Day 1 of the Republican convention (Note: these posts are primarily focused on faith and overall political effect of the convention. For fact-checking of the convention, CNN’s fact-checkers found day 1 of the convention had more falsehoods than all four days of the Democratic convention combined.):
2020 Republican Convention: Day 1 Review
The convention opened with an invocation from Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Dolan’s prayer, like Fr. Martin’s from last week, touched on a range of issues that would seem to challenge both parties.
The convention would have been better off cutting the next 15-20 minutes or so of speeches, beginning with Charlie Kirk’s. Too many of tonight’s speakers have spent too much time in conservative media, and made references that needed much more of an explanation to a general audience than they offered.
The convention had a solid stretch beginning with a video highlighting “Promises Kept” by President Trump, a theme that I’ve found resonates with voters who otherwise express misgivings about the president. They also put in some work trying to recover Trump’s reputation when it comes to COVID, and several health care professionals spoke in a way that might bring some voters who strayed from Trump over the last few weeks back into the fold. I also thought former NFL player Herschel Walker was one of the best speakers of the first 60-90 minutes of the convention, and oddly, it was Walker—not Donald Trump Jr.—who gave the most personal testimonial of Trump.
The oddest speech of the night goes to Kimberly Guilfoyle who yelled and gesticulated for what seemed like an interminable period of time. The whole thing made me uncomfortable.
Perhaps taking a page from the Democratic convention, President Trump moderated two conversations: one with front-line workers to discuss COVID, and another with Americans who were released after being held in foreign nations, like Pastor Andrew Brunson. Trump was overly focused in these exchanges in soliciting credit. This was most striking when, in an attempt to suggest that he is well-respected by world leaders and able to make deals on the international stage, he praised Turkish PM Erdogan as, “to me, very good,” to which Brunson could only respond with an affirmation of his appreciation for the Turkish people.
Andrew Pollak, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, is one of those speakers that Democrats might dismiss, but who I think many Americans find compelling, raising questions they’ve wondered but don’t think Democrats/media answer.
Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban-American businessman, gave an emotional speech with a familiar refrain (and I don’t mean that disparagingly, but just to note it’s a pretty common line) from conservatives who have a family history in Communist countries, as he warned Biden and the Democrats were far-left radicals reminiscent of what his family fled from Cuba. I’m not sure anti-Communist appeals have the same power today, especially against someone like Joe Biden, but Alvarez made the textbook argument.
Former Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who expressed serious misgivings about Trump in 2016, now offered a full-throated endorsement. Haley, the first ethnic minority to serve as governor of South Carolina, pushed back against ostensibly Democratic critiques of America as racist.
Donald Trump Jr. gave an oddly impersonal speech that was full of meaningless rhetoric and ridiculous commitments, including his closing call that with Donald Trump, “you can have it.” It being many things, including a world where “the good guys win” and also “the life you want to have, one with a great job, a beautiful home, a perfect family.”
Senator Tim Scott was the keynote of the evening, and delivered a strong speech which opened up with a critique of Democrats for backing away from his policing reform effort (fair and I agree), and slammed Biden on both policy (fair, though I doubt Tim Scott would have voted against the 94 crime bill—only five U.S. Senators did not vote for it at the time) as well as claims Biden/Harris had their designs on a “socialist utopia” (c’mon). Scott, much like at the event I did with him and the late Ravi Zacharias, emphasized a message that things are not so bad under Trump, that “We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news... racially, economically and culturally-polarizing news.”
Recap
There were three main themes of the night: crime, COVID and cancel culture. On COVID, they wanted to tell a better (and misleading) story about Donald Trump’s record on the pandemic in order to keep Republicans inside the tent. Cancel culture was transformed into a new catch-all way for Republicans to talk about social conservative issues that they don’t really want to talk about. And crime and criminal justice was invoked both to blame Joe Biden for mass incarceration via his crime bill that Republicans supported at the time, as well as repeatedly implicating Biden in calls to defund the police. The primary explicitly religious argument of the night was to suggest Democrats are fine with looting and vandalizing rioters, but not with churches.
The night was full of false or misleading claims, arguments that I think are fair game even as I disagree with them, and then some real points that I don’t think Democrats have responded to adequately.
I think Sen. Scott is right that Democrats backed out of policing reform negotiations too quickly. Scott’s bill put reforms on the table that were important enough for Democrats to include in their own bill, and so I find it difficult to see how you just pass on the opportunity to pass those reforms because Republicans won’t support the Democrats’ bill. I do think keeping churches closed has been unfairly weaponized politically, but I also believe some Democratic officials have been far too flippant about how significant it is, and have failed how these decisions are made in specific relation to houses of worship. At the local level, I’ve found this is mostly working out even as folks are frustrated, but Democrats should have been more proactive in addressing the kinds of sincere concerns that would be raised as well as insulating themselves from the insincere criticisms we knew would come from people like Congressman Jim Jordan. Andrew Pollak’s argument that Democratic leniency on punishment is what led to his daughter’s death, rather than Republican intransigence on gun control legislation, is the kind of argument that I think has resonance with parents who are not only fearful about school shootings, but angry that the kid bullying their child in school isn’t disciplined quickly or strongly enough.
These arguments all have merit, even if they don’t hold up to close scrutiny. Senator Scott made claims last night that made Democrats feel misrepresented, and the “socialist utopia” claim is over-the-top, but with that said, Scott was refreshing in that the argument he made for Republicans was not “Republicans will solve all of your problems,” but a more prudential “Republicans are your best option based on these values and ideas.” It was a brief taste of a more traditional, if still imperfect, conservative/progressive debate.
Unfortunately, Sen. Scott’s brand of politics is not Donald Trump’s, nor is it that of many of his colleagues. One thing that was striking last night was that many of the most outlandish claims were made by sitting Republican officials like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz, not just by activists and media personalities.
Trump spent time on Day 1 trying to recover some of his record, but there was very little vision for the future, especially for how to address COVID. I want to give Republicans the opportunity to build from here, so we’ll see how things develop, but Day 1 failed to reckon with reality as it is: A Democratic Party where Joe Biden is the nominee, not Bernie Sanders; a national economy that has taken a severe blow due to COVID, not the economy of 2019; a nation where almost 200,000 have died from COVID, not one where Trump was able to contain the virus. In fact, and this will seem odd to some readers, but Day 1 did reflect the Trump campaign’s recognition that the conversation on race has changed, that ignoring concerns about racial injustice is no longer viable. Socialism is still a bogeyman, but the idea that Black lives matter is not…while the phrase wasn’t said exactly, several speakers referred to it clearly. In such a insular ecosystem, it’s interesting to see what breaks through and forces an adjustment. The argument that Democrats are the “Real Racists” is ridiculous, but it is itself a kind of concession to the changing winds. And, as I’ve suggested in this newsletter before, do not completely discount the Trump campaign’s ability to peel off an addition 5-7% among Black and Hispanic voters, which could make a difference if the election is close.
My final note is just that I was struck by how vapid some of the philosophy and values were from the convention. There was talk of “manifesting” one’s future, and Donald Trump Jr.’s “you can have it” mantra was not unlike an Oprah giveaway only Donald Trump Jr. wasn’t actually giving anything away but affirmations. It really was Patrick Deneen’s book come to life, as if offered as a vindication of his argument (that others have made as well, to be sure) that liberalism has limited our moral horizon and that both parties are in more agreement on the nature and ends of mankind than we’d think given all of the toxicity. There was much talk of the sort of cultural standing of religion, but little that suggested any kind of fidelity to theological content.
While a couple of references to abortion were made, there was basically no pro-life policy that was advanced, and certainly no invigorated vision for pro-life movement like Bush’s “Culture of Life.” Similarly, while First Amendment protections on religious freedom were mentioned in passing, there’s no actual plan to protect religious freedom outside of “re-elect Trump.” Perhaps the most substantive Christian argument of the night was not made in Christian terms, but was Natalie Harp’s connection of “Right to Try” legislation to a rejection of what my friend Charles Camosy refers to as “throwaway culture.”
I’ll be interested to see if a more substantive philosophical vision emerges in this convention, though I have to admit my expectations are low given vacuousness of the party’s nominee.
Another Point of View
This week, I am reaching out to friends who are Trump supporters or Republicans to get their opinions on each night of the convention. Today, I’d like to share thoughts from Johnnie Moore, Founder of The Kairos Company and long-time consultant and staffer for leading Christian and conservative leaders and institutions. Moore has been an advisor to the Trump White House, and I’m grateful he’d share his thoughts for this forum. I’ll let Johnnie have the last word for this post:
Tonight, more Americans saw a clearer glimpse of the Trump administration that many Evangelicals have come to know. It was a message meant for the American people unfiltered by the media, left or right. It showed an administration with a policy that opposes communism and socialism as a matter of principle, but also because it has listened intently to those who've fled its terror in pursuit of an American dream. It's a Republican administration responsible for leading the most significant reform effort to our Criminal Justice System in thirty years, partly to correct legislation once co-sponsored by Joe Biden. That's because it is an open-minded party whose 2016 platform was adjusted with the influence of Evangelicals who know the system's inadequacies because of prison ministries in partnership with a few brave Democrats of color who rejected the shameful resistance movement in favor of solutions, and with the help of a great American Senator who ought to be a bi-partisan hero as the first black man elected to the House and the Senate, republican Tim Scott. It was a night where another star was another first for America: the great Ambassador Nikki Haley who was South Carolina's first female Governor, and first minority Governor (an Indian-American). Elegantly, she reminded us of what's possible through leadership, in Charleston and Columbia South Carolina or through American power at the United Nations. It was a night where the President chose to step back as he pushed everyday Americans and freed hostages onto the center stage; it was a night where others praised him from decades of personal relationship, like a famous athlete named Herschel and a millennial named Natalie. The night demanded that we resist turning our Presidential election into a grand exercise in grievances and personality conflicts - fixated on feelings - in order to embrace again the marketplace of ideas. Elections are about the efficacy of policies, which wasn't the focus of the Democrat convention. Democrats chose to be anti-Trump, and it appears the Republicans are choosing to be pro-American. Tonight showed that good ideas, with strong leadership, can produce real (if unlikely) results. Tonight demonstrated that a political party can be both principled and a big tent.
-Johnnie Moore
-Michael
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