Well, that was fast. Immediately following the past weekend’s shocking assassination attempt on Donald Trump, reports stated the former president had an epiphany. Out was the demonization, recrimination, and incendiary rhetoric that had characterized partisan politics in the Trump era, and which some charged had created an atmosphere that led to the attempt on the former president’s life. In was a message of unity, reportedly by personal order of the candidate himself, who saw a chance to meet the national mood, take the higher ground, and bring the nation together.
That would have likely been a refreshing and appealing message to the millions who tuned in last night to watch the Republican National Convention. But that’s not what was offered.
The RNC’s second night was instead among the grimmer few hours of political television, as speaker after speaker painted a relentlessly bleak (and often dishonest) vision of a country ravaged by skyrocketing crime and overrun with violent foreigners, criminals, rioters, and terrorists bent on the country’s destruction. This was all the doing of Trump’s political opponents in the Democratic Party who — in one of their many cynical efforts to steal elections, in this case by flooding polling places with illegally voting migrants — have deliberately unleashed an invasion of bloodthirsty rapists and terrorists across the border who are now murdering, raping, and sex-trafficking their way across American neighborhoods.
To be sure, some abided by Trump’s memo. Ron DeSantis warned only that large numbers of migrants would “burden our communities” rather than terrorize them. Marco Rubio, whose lengthy opening remarks on the rallygoer slain on Saturday signaled some urgent rewriting, took the task most seriously, telling the crowd that they “must fight — fight not with violence and destruction, but with our voices and our votes; fight not against each other, but for the hopes and…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
