Notes on the Republican Convention: Day 4
You can read my analysis of Day 1 of the convention here. Day 2 here. And Day 3.
2020 Republican Convention: Day 4 Review
Invocation from Franklin Graham to open up the night. Aside from the “MAGA” reference, it was a pretty straightforward prayer.
Day 4 is opening up with a string of speakers who are atypical supporters of Trump: a video featuring Black Trump supporters and a former democratic socialist, and a speech from Congressman Jeff Van Drew who flipped from the Democratic party to the Republican party who sought to leverage that status to in his argument that Biden is a “puppet” of the radical left.
Ja’Ron Smith is a fascinating guy, and one of the few Trump officials who I think has a future in government beyond Trump.
Really all-in tonight on law & order. This Adam Nagourney article I shared at the beginning of the week was prescient.
Disciplined and focused messaging tonight leading up to Donald Trump’s speech. Law & Order over violent rioters and defunding police. Trump is misunderstood. Democrats are radical and Biden is a puppet. Trump loves America and Democrats hate America and what it stands for. Trump’s tone might be bad, but he gets results.
Ivanka Trump gave the most politically effective speech of the convention by far. She is a deft validator of her father, presenting a version of her father that is close enough to reality for it to be taken seriously, while reflecting real awareness of his weaknesses. Here’s the key excerpt:
Over the last four years, we’ve learned a lot. I’ve seen in Washington it’s easy for politicians to survive if they silence their convictions and skip the hard fights. I couldn’t believe so many politicians actually prefer to complain about a problem rather than fix it. I was shocked to see people leave major challenges unsolved so they can blame the other side, campaign on the same issue in the next election. But Donald Trump did not come to Washington to win praise from the Beltway elites. Donald Trump came to Washington for one reason and one reason alone, to make America great again.
My father has strong convictions. He knows what he believes and he says what he thinks. Whether you agree with him or not, you always know where he stands. I recognize that my dad’s communication style is not to everyone’s taste and I know that his tweets can feel a bit unfiltered, but the results, the results speak for themselves. He is so unapologetic about his beliefs that he has caused me and countless Americans to take a hard look at our own convictions and ask ourselves what do we stand for? What kind of America do we want to leave for our children? I am more certain than ever before we want a future where our kids can believe in American greatness. We want a society where every child can live in a safe community and go to a great school of their choice.
We want a culture where differences of opinion and debate are encouraged, not canceled, where law enforcement is respected, where our country’s rich diversity is celebrated, and where people of all backgrounds, races, genders and creeds have the chance to achieve their God-given potential. This is the future my father is working to build each and every day.
We’ll see how Donald himself does, but I tend to think it can only go downhill from Ivanka’s speech.
Let’s look at some key excerpts from Trump’s speech:
What united generations past was an unshakeable confidence in America’s destiny and an unbreakable faith in the American people. They knew that our country’s blessed by God and has a special purpose in this world.
It is that conviction that inspired the formation of our union, our westward expansion, the abolition of slavery, the passage of civil rights, the space program, and the overthrow of fascism, tyranny and communism.
This towering American spirit has prevailed over every challenge, and lifted us to the summit of human endeavor. And yet despite all of our greatness as a nation, everything we have achieved is now in danger.
This is the most important election in the history of our country.
Thank you. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between the parties, two visions, two philosophies or two agendas. This election will decide whether we save the American dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.
It will decide whether we rapidly create millions of high-paying jobs or whether we crush our industries and send millions of these jobs overseas as has foolishly been done for many decades.
Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.
And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or whether we will allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it. That won’t happen.
At the Democrat National Convention, Joe Biden and his party repeatedly assailed America as a land of racial, economic and social injustice. So tonight I ask you a simple question: How can the Democrat Party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?
In the Left’s backward view, they do not see America as the most free, just and exceptional nation on earth. Instead, they see a wicked nation that must be punished for its sins.
Our opponents say that redemption for you can only come from giving power to them. This is a tired anthem spoken by every repressive movement throughout history. But in this country, we don’t look to career politicians for salvation. In America, we don’t turn to government to restore our souls; we put our faith in almighty God.
In recent months, our nation and the world has been hit by the once in a century pandemic that China allowed to spread around the globe. They could have stopped it but they allowed it to come out.
We are grateful to be joined tonight by several of our incredible nurses and first responders. Please stand and accept our profound thanks and gratitude.
Many Americans, including me, have sadly lost friends and cherished loved ones to this horrible disease. As one nation, we mourn, we grieve, and we hold in our hearts forever the memories of all of those lives that have been so tragically taken. So unnecessary. In their honor we will unite, in their memory we will overcome.
This excerpt gets right at the heart of the cultural resentment Trump voters feel, and that Trump seeks to cultivate.
Many things have a different name now. And the rules are constantly changing. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated and driven from society as we know it.
The far Left wants to coerce you into saying what you know to be false and scare you out of saying what you know to be true. Very sad.
But on November 3rd, you can send them a very thundering message they will never forget.
Thank you very much. Joe Biden is weak. He takes his marching orders from liberal hypocrites who drive their cities into the ground while fleeing far from the scene of the wreckage. These same liberals want to eliminate school choice while they enroll their children in the finest private schools in the land.
They want to open our borders while living in walled-off compounds in communities in the best neighborhoods in the world.
They want to defund the police while they have armed guards for themselves. This November we must turn the page forever on this failed political class. The fact is I’m here --
[APPLAUSE]
-- what’s the name of that building?
[APPLAUSE]
But I’ll say it differently. The fact is we’re here and they’re not.
Analysis
There are other speakers last night: Rudy Giuliani, Mitch McConnell, etc., but tonight wasn’t so much about introducing new content, but delivering a more condensed and focused onslaught of what the Trump campaign believes/wants to be the most salient themes in this election. They want voters to believe the chaos of the last four years is inherent to our politics. They want to argue that it doesn’t matter if Biden isn’t a radical himself, he can’t stop the radicals who will be empowered if he wins. The choice in this election is not about who will make our politics decent, because decency is no longer an option. The choice is about who will be subject to the chaos, and who the person in The White House will side with in the chaos. The pandemic came in from China, and the damage it has caused was entirely inevitable, and the damage it has not caused is because of Trump. The protests over racial injustice are due to Democrats’ promoting racial conflict, while the real racial injustices are the ones Trump has already addressed and taken care of. Democrats want to silence debate in this country, but Trump will ensure the radical left never has a say. No principle stands on its own; it all rests on Trump and the threats he will protect us from and the fears only he will keep at bay.
That’s the case Republicans advanced this week, and it’s the case embodied by Trump. This is how Ivanka put it: “He is so unapologetic about his beliefs that he has caused me and countless Americans to take a hard look at our own convictions and ask ourselves what do we stand for?”
This really is the choice in this election. When I say that the state of our politics reflects the state of our souls, it’s not some backdoor way into manipulating people to take on my political views. It’s just reality. Donald Trump was elected because enough people in this country believed it was acceptable to elect him. He will be re-elected if enough people believe the way he leads is acceptable, that the costs associated with Trump are worth accepting—that he…this…is the only plausible alternative to a radical left that must be denied power at all cost. He will be re-elected if enough Americans accept the argument that everything that has gone right is due to Trump, and none of what has gone wrong is his responsibility.
There is, of course, another way. And the problem for the Trump campaign is that Americans already chose it in the Democratic primary. The Democratic party nominated Joe Biden. This complicates things for the Trump campaign. They now have to argue that Trump is the only choice in the face of the radical left as they run against a man who ran and won as an alternative to the radical left. They now have to argue that voters should not believe that what happened in the Democratic primary actually happened, that it was something else.
For all of the misdirection and gaslighting of the RNC, Donald Trump could not help but be Donald Trump. We were told that he’s actually a unifier who wants to represent all Americans, but he could not help but stand in front of The White House where he decided to host his political convention—an unprecedented, norm-breaking and potentially illegal act—and after listing off a string of lies, flat-out lies, about his political opponents and the millions of Americans they represent, declare “The fact is I’m here…we’re here and they’re not.” We were told, through another norm-breaking and manipulative act—the politicization of a naturalization ceremony—that Trump welcomed immigrants, but Trump could not help but turn the mere notion that a Biden Administration would accept more refugees into an attack. This whole convention was about Democrats’ supposedly poor view of America, about how Trump only sees the best of America, but Trump can only disparage those who disagree with him, his fellow citizens. Unlike his predecessors, this is not a man who would dare suggest his opponents have a point, or have good intentions. He can’t even get through a speech consistently addressing fellow Americans as fellow Americans. By the end, he was only speaking to those who support him, only those who see his vision as virtuous, his flaws as necessary.
My preview of his speech that I offered yesterday held up pretty well. When Trump spoke about abortion, he used precisely the framing I suggested he would, “Democrats talk about moral decency, but…” My advice for Biden holds up as well. The Republicans’ case depends on voters’ having the “radical left” on their minds, not Biden himself. Biden needs to be forceful and present over these next two months. And according to reports out late yesterday, that is exactly the plan.
This is going to be an election. It was always going to be an election. Donald Trump is not going to roll over.
The danger facing the Biden campaign is that Trump would bully them out of the center, out of a big view of the electorate. As I’ve written this week, I have been convinced that “cancel culture” is a more personal, visceral concept for many Americans then I had previously thought. And there is a core truth there, even as it’s manipulated for Trump’s political purposes. Barack Obama recognized that.
Democrats must not fall into the trap of fearing “depressing turnout” so much that they allow Trump to play for the center uncontested. They need to speak to those who believe Ann Dorn made some good points, and be able to tell the difference between those voters and Trump-sycophants they’ll never persuade. The Democrats’ convention was a good continuation of Biden’s general posture, and it must continue over the next couple months if Biden is to win and win big.
Outside Opinions
My apologies that we were not able to continue to offer unfiltered views from Trump supporters these past three days as we were Day 1. We had someone confirmed for days 2 and 3, but medical issues intervened. And on Day 4, it was just too big of a lift with so many attending or otherwise having obligations due to the convention.
What I thought I’d do here is just share a few articles reflecting on Trump’s speech and the Republican convention from across the political spectrum:
“A Carnival of Propaganda” - McKay Coppins, The Atlantic
”Trump Lit Up The Skies (And The Right) While The Streets Raged — And Remade Conventions Forever” - Christopher Bedford, The Federalist
"How Trump’s RNC Weaponized Blackness to Sell a Lie” - Cassie da Costa, The Daily Beast
"Trump: Only He Stands Between Prosperity and Anarchy” - Philip Wegmann, RealClearPolitics
"The Malign Fantasy of Donald Trump’s Convention” - Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker
"In 2016, Trump Promised to Make America Safe Again. He Failed.” -Jonathan Chait, NYMag
"Republican Convention: Best and Worst Moments From Trump’s Big Night” - NY Times’ Columnists and Contributors
A Final Word
One motivation I had in providing analysis of the conventions over the past couple of weeks has been to give you a sense of what the two parties seek to convey, what they are seek to accomplish. I hope we’ve done that. We will continue to do that over the coming months, as well as bring together news and updates on the campaign along with my personal opinion on how things ought to develop, and how I think they will develop.
Thank you, as always, for reading and being a part of this community. We’ll take on these next couple of months together, striving to see our fellow Americans, even those we disagree with, and keep first things first.
-Michael
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