Dancing at the Grifter’s Ball

Pam Bondi’s anti-Biden nepotism speech is nestled into a night of Trump grifters living off their father’s/husband’s name. And The Trump Party sees no irony, can see no irony, in this.

He dirties everything he touches.

Everything. Trump spares no reputation, no tradition left clean, no ‘norm’ left unsoiled, any laws in his way are trampled into the dirt. His every touch is like a child with mud on their hands; filth is strewn over all. And like a child, he grins at the destruction in his wake. Last night Trump smeared his hands over the White House, the naturalization ceremony, the pardon, and used them all as petty, political tools to boost an election campaign that is already dirty with corruption and brimming with lies. He sullies them all not for any noble purpose or sense of justice, but to squeeze out just one more vote from those white, ‘suburban housewives’ that he keeps throwing hypothetical Black people at. 

Our government is reduced from a constitutional republic/democracy to no more than a political prop, the People’s White House as a stage for reelection, the employees using their office and power as campaign tools, and the taxpayer’s money blatantly being used to elect the most undemocratic leader the United States of America has ever seen. Nothing is sacred, nothing cannot be used to wrench what is supposed to be a government of the people, for all the people, to a thing to serve the power not of a small political base, but just one man, Donald J. Trump.

Last night RNC was a self-servering parade of corruption and lies, a weaponizing the American government for the benefit an amoral man at the head of a party ready and eager to serve that amorality. And, as usual with the entire Trump administration, the law breaking is right out in the open, proudly displayed, (“Russia, if you’re listening”) bragged about, passed around like a good joint at a frat party. This isn’t bending rules, this is snapping and breaking laws, flagrantly.

I said in a previous post that this convention was going to be a sort of ‘Woodstock’ for the Trump Party, ‘Four Days of Fear & Hate”. I feel I underplayed it. Speaker after speaker got up, lied and smiled about it. Pam Bondi of Florida spewed forth a much-debunked conspiracy theory of Joe and Hunter Biden and Ukraine, railing against ‘nepotism’ on a night where an array of Trumps (all benefiting off their father/husband’s office) overwhelmed the so-called ‘real’ people. And all the grifters danced in joy.

Through the looking glass, while denying you are actually in wonderland.

It was an evening of breaking laws, nepotism, lying, making bizarre claims (My father will put people on Mars!) and celebrating it all. All in an America, damaged, grieving, wondering how they will make rent and feed themselves, or as Trump calls 'it, '“Biden’s America.”

And an estimated 200,000 Americans are dead, with another 1,200 Americans died of the coronavirus on the Tuesday of this shitshow. One mention of the dead, in passing, from the First Lady, while everyone else acted like the virus was over, past tense, like it isn’t still burning, threatening, killing. A complete unreality show, with Trump and the Trump family the most unreal part of it.

Good lord, these fucking people. I can’t do anything more but shake my head at Trump’s American Carnage and wonder where it will end. Or if it ever will.

Trump says he alone can fix it; turns out only he alone could have brought it on.

What the Hell did I Just Watch?

Evita of the Trump Party.

Distorted history, outright lies, a lady angrily screaming into an empty hall, and a speech from Donny Jr, so disjointed and incoherent, that as he spoke, #Cocaine was trending on Twitter. It was supposed to be ‘uplifting, positive, very positive’, Donny Sr. promised! Instead, we got anger, bile, lies, lies and more lies. And yelling, lots of yelling. It was pretty… amazing.

The theme of the night was ‘The Land of Promise’, and they promised light, positivity, optimism, you know, all the good stuff. Right off the bat we had Trump storming in like your drunk uncle who wants to settle who took his favorite skateboard (you now, that one he put the ‘Hanging Ten’ sticker on) back in 1977. He started in attacking Biden, Democrats, China and claimed Democrats were promoting and using ‘voter fraud’, trying to steal the election by saying that votes should, you know, be counted. It was his usual disjointed rambling, a bitter grievance masterpiece. The Qanon cultists were taking notes so they could decipher the ‘breadcrumbs’ for the “real” message later. (When it comes to Qanon, “quote marks” are mandatory.)

Oh, and all the horrible stuff happening under Trump? Be totally worse under Biden. Totally. Fear Biden! Everything that Trump did is actually Biden’s fault!!

So there.

And he’s going to do this stream-of-consciousness ranting EVERY night! That means he’s going to work four whole night in a row. That’s dedication. That’s how desperate he is, he’s coming close to doing his job.

Nikki Haley was there, completely forgetting her trashing of Trump four years ago, trying to present herself as a sort of ‘sane version’ of Trumpism, Trump scrubbed of the overt racism and outright hate; Diet Coke Trumpism. It was a good speech, even if it had to, like most speeches of the night, ignore Trump’s actual record and rhetoric to make its points. Talking of ‘cancel culture’ and political correctness’ Haley claimed the president “knows that political correctness and 'cancel culture' are dangerous and just plain wrong.” This ignores the many times, like just last week with his attack on Goodyear Tires, Trump has put out a ’cancel’ fatwa of his own on journalists, Hollywood celebrities and entire organizations for not praising him enough. Ignore reality and blame whatever is going on in America on anyone but Trump.

As a possible 2024 prospect, she was the one of the calmest people in a night of yelling and arm waving.

There was a lot of that, of ignoring actual reality in favor of what they would like things to be, you know, like praising Trump on the now ruined economy (by time traveling back to December), rewriting his coronavirus response, dismissing his actual racial rhetoric and record. Some circus strongman level bending and twisting of the truth.

The most cringe-worthy moment of the night in the many on display, was when former hostage Andrew Brunson thanked Trump for getting him out of the Turkish prison where he’d been sentenced for 28 years. And Trump replied: “I have to say, that to me, President Erdogan was very good.”

That would be the brutal dictator that threw Brunson in prison in the first place. Brunson just sat there, looking at him while he went on to praise Erdogan some more. It was a version of “Well, sorry he killed people, but he’s never killed me.” Insane.

The ‘real people’ stars of the night were the two personal injury lawyers from St. Louis, Mark and Patty McCloskey, who thought it a good idea to wave guns at people who dared to walk past their house. They were there, again, to tell you the things happening in Trump’s America were actually happening in the mythical ‘Biden’s America’, where every day would be a mix of Soylent Green, Mad Max, and Planet of the Apes. You could boil the whole thing down to: The Black people are coming to riot and move in next to you. These are the ‘ordinary Americans’ the GOP wants to praise, protecting their gilded McMansion against… passersby.

That was a bigger theme than any openly announced; Be Afraid of ‘Those People’. There were several Black speakers on this first night: Senator Tim Scott, State Senator Vernon Jones, Kim Klacik, Herschel Walker, there to say how terrible Democrats are to Black America and how un-racist Trump is. Now, the Democrats do need to do better on race (we all do), but that’s not why these Black speakers were there. They were not there to appeal to Black and POC, (Trump support in the Black community is so small as to be a blip) they were there to reassure the white voters that they’re not racist. It’s okay to vote for someone with Trump’s abysmal record on race, it won’t make you racist. I’m sure that was not the intent of the sincere speakers, but it is the intent of the Trump Party.

The Promised Land indeed.

One of the most batshit things of the evening was Kimberly Guilfoyle, ex-Fox News host, ex-wife of CA Governor Gavin Newsom, girlfriend of Don Jr, and an important and effective fundraiser for the GOP. She gave the standard ‘Dems comin’ for your money, guns, and babies, gonna make you all socialists’ speech, but delivered it in a such a shouting, shrill, angry fashion I cringed at home. I thought something was wrong with her. I’m an actor, I wanted to tell her that they have microphones, you don’t need to yell. It was as if she had practiced it to be shouted at a noisy, crowded, and rambunctious room and couldn’t adjust to the fact the hall was empty. She even still had all the applause lines. To the echo of no applause.

Should I mention Guilfoyle got her own heritage wrong, claiming her mother wasn’t a citizen (she was born in Puerto Rico, which makes her an American citizen), and calling herself a ‘1st generation American Citizen;’ (getting the nomenclature wrong) when she’s not?

Nah, that’s petty. And I don’t want to be petty about pettiness.

We end here with probably the more anticipated speech of the night: Donald Trump Jr. Don Jr. started with his dad’s campaign, figuratively (sometime literally) fetching the coffee. It was Jr. who brought the Russian spy to Trump Tower to pitch her anti-Hillary, Pro-The Donald portfolio, which everybody knows was a great move. In the past few years though, his position has become point man for his father, and he and Guilfoyle have become a power couple in the Trump Party and a ‘credible’ prospect of running for president in 2024. Of course, that was before this speech.

Really, maybe he was just stunned by Guilfoyle’s speech, or deafened, but he delivered his usual ‘Imagine how the world would be if my father was not president’ speech with red, weeping eyes, and stuffed nose. It lite up Twitter for all the wrong reasons. This is the future of the Republican Trump Party.

What all these speeches have in common (besides Trump good, Biden evil) is trying to blame everything that has gone wrong under Trump’s presidency on the Democrats and Joe Biden. The coronavirus, the cratered economy, the double-digit unemployment, the protests, the est. 200,000 dead Americans and the rest of us not knowing how we’re going to pay rent or even eat. None of this is Trump’s fault. It’s all a plot against him, it’s all the Deep State ™, it’s really what will happen under Joe Biden. This night is like all other night’s in the Trump Party; they shout, they point, they exaggerate, they twist, they lie to avoid any sort of responsibility, and then say they deserve four more years to save you from… them.

Tuesday night; more of the same.

Four Days of Fear and Hate

Of course, Donny opens for himself. This is 2016, but ya gets the idea. Photo: Meg Vogel

In 1969, the small upstate New York town of Woodstock saw a music festival that had branded itself as ‘Three Days of Peace and Love’. Well, it turned into three days of mud and failed organization, but at least there was some of that peace and love going around. And some good dope.

Now, we have another hastily thrown together festival starting this week. Instead of a grassy field upstate, it’ll be held in rooms and cyberspace. It also has people (acts) who dropped out (where are Bush and Cheney? Mitt Romney?), and instead of hitting the stage during a rainstorm, it’s playing during a global pandemic. It’s four days instead of three, and it’s not about ‘peace and love’, but focuses, like the people throwing it, on ‘fear and hate’.

The Republican National Convention has begun.

The Democrats focused on inclusion, diversity, and a vision for what to do after Trump was gone. The Trump Party (as that is what it is) is focused on blaming someone (China, Democrats, Biden) for the wreck their own polices, and the lack of them, have made of America. If you look at the speakers, for every one of them slightly this side of sane, they have a pile of bomb throwers, cranks, grifters and grievance peddlers. And Trumps. Every night at least a couple of the Trump Crime family (and extended Crime Family) will be speaking. And Trump himself.

Every night.

That can’t go wrong, can it?

The RNC has become the Trump Show, that final season of the Apprentice he never got; all Trump all the time. In fact, producers of the Apprentice are helping to slap together this soggy bag of anger and hate into something ‘watchable’, like car wrecks are watchable, in the hopes that Americans will slow down and gawk.

Who’s speaking? All the Trump kids, their spouses, and Trump himself (every night, did I say that already?) Jim Jordan (still dogged by accusations he ignored the sexual assault of athletes when he was a coach) Matt Gaetz, liar in the service of Trump, who mocked the virus by wearing a gas mask in congress during a vote, as his constituents were dying of it back home, the idiot ‘gun couple’, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who demonstrated incorrect gun handling by waving guns at protesters walking past their house, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was part of gassing peaceful protesters and has used his offices to protect Trump, Sen. Rand Paul, who has proven himself to be an idiot several times over, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, whose covid policies have been killing thousands in her state, along with her refusal to seek help after the derecho devastated counties and towns, Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, representing a state whose policies have allowed the virus to rampage through nursing homes, beaches and bars, infecting and killing thousands. She should be home, working to make things right.

So, why double down on the hate and grievance?  

What else they got?

Trump can’t run on his record because, well, look around. Est 200,000 Americans dead, virus burning uncontrolled across the country, double digit unemployment, protesters in the streets… none of this is good. So, he tried tweeting ‘LAW & ORDER’ in all caps, because Trump, but seeing how he’s the shadiest President since Nixon (Nixon resigned before being impeached, btw) that hasn’t worked so well. Even his secret police only made things worse by being even more violent that the regular police. He’s got the lying thing down (Joe Biden is a radical leftist!) but he just lost his most effective liar as Kellyanne left, about to lose her family over her ugly job. He’s still showing pictures of burning cars and calling it ‘Biden’s America’, fooling nobody. Donny, it’s Your America.

Fear, hate, finger-pointing and grievance are what he’s got left. Point to immigrants, to Black Life Matters, to China, to Democrats to explain what can only be called a failed presidency. They are to blame! If only there was one of those forgotten caravans around to help! If you can’t inspire hope (and let’s face it, he can’t) then inspire fear.

We’ll see a lot of that the next four days.

It’s all brought to us by a party who has literally thrown out their GOP party platform (principles, hope, mercy…) to say the only thing they stand for is Trump. Where Goes Trump, There Go All. A cult-party of over 200,000 acceptable deaths (57% of Republicans think that, according to polling), ready to reward his performance with four more years.

And four more after that, as a spying/virus/economy crashing do-over.

And they’d give it to him.

Let the Four days of Fear and Hate… begin.

It’s Going to be Ugly.

What the GOP thinks matters. Insane. Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS via Getty Image

The DNC has been a pretty good show so far, making the case for Biden/Harris. They been very inclusive, and not in an over done ‘look! We have POC too!’ kind of way both parties have been guilty of in the past. All kinds of people, every walk of life are there, speaking truth and holding out a hand. They’ve tried to include everyone.

Even Republicans.

Really, Biden/Harris is not reaching out to just the ‘Democratic base’, they are reaching past them, reaching out to, well, everyone. And people are listening.

The RNC, who was holding out hopes for an in-person gathering up until a couple weeks ago (North Carolina! No, Florida, No….online?) are way behind and will have to play some serious catch up. The announcement that the the St. Louis ‘gun couple’ Mark and Patricia McCloskey will be featured speakers is not sign of outreach, ‘big tent’ style GOP (who remembers that phrase? Used to be thrown around quite a bit in the Reagan/Bush years.), it’s a sign of four nights of bitter white grievance and anger, finger pointing and ignoring (how could they not?) the est 200,000 dead from Trump’s negligence. There will be very little about that. Putting people like the McCloskey’s front and center tell us all we really need to know about what GOP thinks the issues are, and how seriously they will treat those issues.

And they will continue to call Joe Biden a ‘radical leftist’. Joe Biden… radical. Sorry, literally no sane person with eyes believes that. The fact is they keep pushing a losing narrative because, what else they got?

With a cratered economy, with those 200,000 dead, with an uncontrolled virus killing indiscriminately, with people in the streets seeking a racial justice denied them for centuries, Trump and the GOP thinks it’s a good idea to get two idiots who practice extremely poor gun safety and think pointing guns at people walking by your house, is a good and wise thing. They are not reaching ’beyond their base’, they are catering to them, and ONLY them. They do not care about convincing anyone beyond the ever-narrowing, ever-whitening, base. They have no real interest in adding to their party, no, they are actively subtracting from it; ‘canceling’ those not Trump enough, not toeing their lies enough, and not hating enough.

I fully expect the RNC is watching what the DNC is doing and taking notes. Except they’ll be tossing out the hope and dialing up the anger, the grievance at being a dying minority.

It’s gonna be a four day fear/hate fest, and Trump will speak every freakin’ night because… Trump.

It’s going to be ugly.