Notes on the Republican Convention: Day 3
You can read my coverage of Day 1 of the convention here. Day 2 here.
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We’re going to discuss day 3 of the convention, but first a quick word about day 2: the Wall Street Journal is reporting that several of the immigrants who participated in the naturalization ceremony were not notified they would be taking part in the Republican convention. Totally above board stuff here, folks!
“He’s exploiting these people at a ceremony that is sacred and fundamental to what makes this country great,” said Mr. Miller, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign. “He’s using them in the most cynical and dishonest way. His own policies would cut refugee admissions and asylum status, making it hard for these naturalization ceremonies to happen.”
2020 Republican Convention: Day 3 Review
Opening prayer from Rabbi…wouldn’t be the first time this evening that political support and religious belief were conflated.
Marsha Blackburn, who has heard enough good preaching to be a better person, gave a shamefully divisive speech focused on cancel culture (surprise!) and the idea that Democrats attack heroes so that people will be reliant on government.
Given the news of the day, it was jarring to hear continued, sustained derogatory remarks about protesters and such unmitigated praise for, and contempt for criticism of, law enforcement.
A mother of a child with Down Syndrome spoke about her pro-life values, and how school choice allowed her to provide greater opportunity for her child. Probably the best speaker of the night so far.
Karen Pence gave a dignified speech, befitting her office, focusing primarily on veterans and military families.
A good string of speeches from Karen Pence to Kayleigh McEneny to Kellyanne Conway with the latter two offering testimonials of Donald Trump treating them well and standing by them with the suggestion that this is a window into Trump’s views on women more broadly. There was also a video honoring the suffragette movement and the Republican Party’s historic role in advancing women’s voting rights.
There were back-to back Catholic-focused speakers with Sr. Deirdre Byrne who said “President Trump will stand up against Biden-Harris who are the most anti-life Presidential ticket ever: Even supporting the horrors of late term abortion and infanticide” (this is not accurate according to reports, though Biden will certainly have the opportunity to confirm his views), and alleged Trump was the “most pro-life president ever.” (Note: today the USCCB criticized the Trump Administration on its support for the death penalty.) Her speech took a very partisan turn near the end, which was noted to me by a number of individuals of different partisan affiliations. Her description that Jesus was crucified because he wasn’t “politically correct,” and her seeming connection of “eternal life” with political support for Trump is inappropriate, to say the least.
Wow, Lou Holtz suggests Joe Biden is a “Catholic in name only” due to his pro-choice position.
Jack Brewer, a former NFL player and member of Black Voices for Trump, made another appeal on behalf of Trump for Black voters. He argued that issues with “Trump’s tone” shouldn’t lead to supporting Biden-Harris.
As expected, a very faith-heavy biographical video leading into VP Pence’s speech.
Also to be expected, Pence gave a speech that was conventional in presentation (he stuck to the script, he was “presidential” as we have tended to think of “presidential”). Pence did what Trump can not do: stay disciplined, stay on message, and deliver a coherent case for the Trump Administration. A few key excerpts:
Over the past four years, I've worked closely with our President. I've seen him when the cameras are off. Americans see President Trump in lots of different ways but there's no doubt how President Trump sees America. He sees America for what it is... a nation that has done more good in this world than any other . . . a nation that deserves far more gratitude than grievance . . . and if you want a president who falls silent when our heritage is demeaned or insulted, then he's not your man.
On November 3rd, you need to ask yourself: Who do you trust to rebuild this economy? A career politician who presided over the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression? Or a proven leader who created the greatest economy in the world.
The choice is clear to bring America all the way back, we need four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.
My fellow Americans, we are passing through a time of testing. For in the midst of this global pandemic, just as our nation has begun to recover, we've seen violence and chaos in the streets of our major cities.
President Donald Trump and I will always support the right of Americans to peaceful protest, but rioting and looting is not peaceful protest, tearing down statues is not free speech. Those who do so will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Last week, Joe Biden didn't say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country.
Let me be clear: the violence must stop -- whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha.
Too many heroes have died defending our freedoms to see Americans strike each other down.
We will have law and order on the streets of America.
So let's run the race marked out for us. Let's fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents, fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire ...let's fix our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith and freedom...and never forget that "where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," That means freedom always wins....
Analysis:
I found the programming to be less compelling than day 2, but I got the sense tonight was largely geared toward older voters. Tonight was an appeal to normalcy and stability, while portraying Democrats as disruptive threats to normalcy and stability. The repeated references to mobs, cancel culture, violent rioters and looters, combined with nods toward equal opportunity or racial progress, sets up the idea that if Republicans aren’t offering enough justice for you, you’re a radical. That’s how they want to frame up the choice.
The theme of the night was heroes, and Democrats’ opposition to them. It’s a theme that is difficult to sell when Donald Trump is your nominee, but it’s right in Mike Pence’s wheelhouse. From the beginning, Pence has been on the ticket to lend it a certain kind of traditionalism, a certain kind of normalcy.
Pence has always struck me as someone who fused Christianity with patriotism and a notion of American values to such an extent that it seems like he has a hard time telling any difference between the two. That certainly came through in his speech tonight. His easy manipulation of scripture goes beyond fusion, but more like a form of syncretism. The Religious Left is often criticized for collapsing theological concepts like “the kingdom of God” into mere social action, and there’s merit for those critiques at points, but Pence makes the same move, as did other speakers tonight. Prayers to God to “Make America Great Again.” Connecting “eternal life” to how you vote in November. Turning a passage of scripture that is about focusing on Jesus and him alone, into a call to focus on “Old Glory.” These are not creations of the Trump era, though he has certainly advanced religious manipulation in politics…these are old tropes of some of the worst kinds of ways to mix faith and politics.
It has been interesting how many of the speakers tonight referred to Biden and the radical progressives or the “mob.” Pence even specifically referred to Biden’s comment that he would be a “transition” president, and suggested Biden was intending too transition to the “radical left.” Implicit in all of this, of course, is a concession that Biden himself is not a radical, and that they cannot convince enough voters that he is radical. The best they can do is argue that he’s not really in charge, that he’s a mere vessel for the *real* power players on the left.
Tonight, Donald Trump will give his acceptance speech, and then we’re off to the races. I’ll be here with analysis late tonight, but here’s my preview: expect Donald Trump to go nuclear on Biden. The Trump campaign knows they would lose if the election was held today, and they are going to have real trouble raising Trump’s favorables to compete with Biden’s where they are right now. My super specific prediction? Given the convention’s focus on presenting counter-intuitive views of Trump (he values women as professionals! he takes his kids to Disney Land! He loves immigrants!), I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a riff in the speech that was something like, “I gave up many things to become president, and I knew that unfair attacks would come my way. Still, I can’t believe what the Democrats say about me. They say I’m ____, but they’re the party that _____. They say I’m ____, but Joe Biden is the one who said ____.” Knowing Trump, the most extreme and misleading accusations won’t be left to the lesser-known speakers; those were only warm-ups.
The Democratic convention effectively insulated Biden from attacks on his faith generally, but the Biden campaign has a choice to make regarding the most incisive attacks we’ve seen over the past few nights. We are likely to hear the President of the United States accuse Joe Biden, who has expressed deep reservations about abortion his entire life and voted against late-term abortions throughout his time in the Senate, of supporting infanticide, of supporting taxpayer funding of abortion up until birth. The Biden campaign will be doing rapid response throughout the night. When Trump says Biden doesn’t care about workers, they’ll respond to that. When Trump says Biden has been soft on China, they’ll respond. Will they respond, tonight or ever, confirming Biden’s longstanding support for late-term restrictions? Are they prepared to offer any limit at all?
More generally, it’s going to be important for the Biden campaign to get Biden out there in these next ten weeks. To constantly remind voters who Biden is, to communicate with voters about Biden’s values, and try to break through to as many voters as possible and stay there. The Trump campaign is throwing a lot at them: attacking Hunter (there was no segment during the Democratic convention that I remember on Ivanka Trump or Donald Trump Jr. and they have decided to become political figures), disparaging Biden’s faith, flat-out lying about various aspects of both Trump’s record and Biden’s…it’s crucial Biden remains disciplined and positive. It would be a mistake to let the attacks from Trump and his allies go unanswered. It would also be a mistake to respond in a way that lacks control and purpose or fails to keep the entire electorate in mind.
This race is not over…
Michael
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I have read and reread the discussions of the first three days of the Republican National Convention (RNC), and overall I found them some of the most disappointing work I’ve seen in the “Reclaiming Hope” project.
In April 2012, scholars Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann described the Republican party this way: “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” Every one of these characteristics has been on display at the RNC – and yet the comments here have not reflected that comprehensively validated understanding.
The image of the RNC presented here is far more sober and thoughtful than the reality justifies. Two issues have been particular underplayed: the extent to which the presentations have relied on what analysts have called “a firehose of falsehoods,” and the degree to which the RNC has justified Michael Gerson’s description of Republican attitudes toward Donald Trump as “idolatrous.” Both of these elements are obviously central to a biblically-based understanding. That the former point was barely mentioned is especially surprising because I’ve mentioned it in well-received comments concerning Pastor Al Mohler’s political views – which gave reason to think that truthfulness would be of central importance here, as it clearly is in Scripture – far more important there, in fact, than abortion. So far, that has not been the case – and it makes a difference. The Democratic National Convention (DNC) was outstanding in its truthfulness, as fact-checkers have made clear; the RNC is equally disgraceful in its mendacity.
Similarly, the way Trump is being treated – to the extent that the RNC essentially replaced its platform with dedication to whatever Trump decrees – is also striking and unbiblical. The psalmist tells us, “Put not your trust in princes,” and Scripture abounds with examples of the truth of this teaching – from the unnamed rulers who organized the building of the Tower of Babel to Pilate the procurator who crucified Christ. That the person to whose whims Republicans would consign the country is the most mendacious and likely least fit President in American history makes this attitude especially unjustifiable and dangerous.
As well, these comments have not adequately reckoned with the extent to which RNC presenters have obviously been mobilizing hatred and fear in ways dangerous to civil peace and democratic governance, in the obvious interest of utilizing the way the American system advantages rural white people to win a narrow Electoral College victory. Nothing could be further from the truth than Johnnie Moore’s assertion – presented without comment – that Trump’s Republican party is a “big tent.” That was certainly the case at the DNC; minority window-dressing aside, it is clearly not true of the RNC – a fitting picture for a party whose House delegation is 90 percent composed of white men. Thoughtful journalist Thomas Edsall surveyed the ominous implications of this situation:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opinion/trump-republican-convention-racism.html
There is also a bit too much of the “Church of the Savvy,” as media analyst Jay Rosen termed it – which he has summarized as “Forget truthfulness. What works?” Rosen has mercilessly flayed that outlook as a matter of journalism; it makes even less sense here. How something will “play” electorally is not nearly as important, especially in this context, as whether it is “true” and “just” (as Paul puts it) and whether it will meet the actual needs of the country.
Finally, as a retired Foreign Service officer, while I appreciated the mention of the Hatch Act, I wish the discussion had been better focused. The flagrant contempt for the Act at the RNC was not just “norm-breaking”; it was lawlessness – just as much a misuse of national resources for partisan purposes as was Trump’s hijacking of military assistance to Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden. The Act does, however, codify a great whopping norm: that the government belongs to all the people, all the time – not just to a political party, let alone to a single person. It has many essential effects that were ignored:
• Keeping the great power of the federal government from influencing election results.
• Protecting federal employees from being pressured by their politically-appointed supervisors into partisan displays that could violate their conscience (and invite retaliation if they refused).
• Ensuring that federal workplaces are free of the deep divisions that the intrusion of partisanship would inevitably create.
Contrary to the all-too-savvy idea that Americans “no longer respect or care about” such concerns (which unfortunately replicated the scorn for the Act expressed by Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows), their public importance would become immediately obvious if, for example, Postal Service workers wore Biden/Harris shirts and buttons on the job. Were that to occur, Meadows and his ilk – who had no evident problem conscripting federal workers to assist the Hatch Act violations at the RNC – would no doubt be among the loudest objectors.
I hope that any further analysis of the RNC, and of the ongoing election process, will reflect a deeper understanding of the range of concerns raised where religion and politics meet. That kind of analysis is especially important right now, and always in short supply.