Two National Conventions, a Study in Contrasts
Donald Trump may win in November. He may not.
But, either way, President Trump has done the GOP a great, transformative service by clarifying what the Republican Party is today and whose interests the party must serve.
Judging from the professional production of last week’s Republican National Convention (RNC), the GOP learned from Democrats’ week-earlier divisive, embarrassingly-amateurish, angrily-dystopian, virtue-signaling, policy-lite, “America’s awful, vote for us” pander-fest.
Republicans featured no celebrity hosts, shopworn party grandees, flowery introductions, clumsy attempts at humor, canned applause or false enthusiasm. The contrasts in content were particularly stunning.
The RNC outlined elements of American history, the president’s first-term results and his second term agenda in presentations based on the general theme of “Honoring the Great American Story.”
Each evening presented reviews of America’s past and present, and optimistic visions for the nation’s future.
The majority of speakers were live, self-introduced, less-known, even unknown men and women of every race from all walks of life relating compelling human, often-inspirational stories and experiences, all policy-related. Prominent officeholders appeared, but little-known Americans were the show-stoppers.
Democrats devoted much of their convention to attacking Trump, setting the stage for their nominee to relate his own accomplishments, governing policies and precisely how he would improve America. Joe Biden didn’t even try.
After nearly five decades in elected office, Biden couldn’t name a single personal senatorial/vice-presidential initiative that wouldn’t alienate his party’s radical wing.
To the profound relief of his handlers, though, Biden was able to read twenty minutes of platitudes and vague promises more or less successfully.
Apparently, Democrats’ sole rationales for electing Biden are “nice guy,” “free stuff,” and/or “not Trump.”
Those didn’t play well.
According to Rasmussen Reports, President Trump’s approval rating rose from 47 to 51 percent during the Democrats’ convention. Only midway through the RNC, a Zogby poll showed Trump’s approval at 52 percent, higher than at the same point in 2016.
The reasons for Trump’s polling surge aren’t entirely attributable to his accomplishments/agenda. Left unmentioned in the Democrats’ infomercial were the nearly 25 percent of their 5,000 voting delegates who opposed the party’s radical socialist platform, as do many rank-and-file Democrats nationwide.
Democrats’ four nights (years?) of attempts to inflame black anger by describing the president, his voters – and white Americans generally – as “racists” and “white supremacists” stood in stark contrast to the RNC’s outreach to minority voters.
South Carolina’s black Republican Senator Tim Scott made this powerful statement: “Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”
Democrat Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones and former football star Herschel Walker, black men, passionately rebutted “racist” allegations against President Trump. Walker spoke about his long friendship with the president, insulted that anyone would think him willing to remain friends with a racist for 37 years.
Jones praised Trump’s work on criminal justice reform and for putting “black workers first…when Obama wouldn’t do it.”
Strong women spoke, too – among them business owners, mothers, survivors, a farmer and a nun. Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood staffer turned pro-life activist, revealed grisly truths about abortion, and how minority lives are disproportionately aborted.
First Amendment rights, especially faith and freedom to worship, took center stage. So did law and order and support for America’s police.
Democrats never mentioned the wide-spread anarchy unleashed by their criminal fringe in Democrat-run cities, leaving the distinct impression that weak and/or sympathetic elected Democrats either cannot or will not stop it.
Kentucky’s first black attorney general, Daniel Cameron, a young Republican, condemned the lawless left-wing rioting, pointing out that minority neighborhoods will suffer most from Democrats’ attempts to defund police departments.
Maximo Alvarez spoke: “Free education, free healthcare, defund the police, trust a socialist state more than your family and community…sound familiar.” Alvarez’s family fled Castro’s Cuba.
Republicans spoke candidly. None downplayed America’s imperfect history, but, unlike accusatorial Democrats, no RNC speaker claimed that today’s America and Americans are defined by the nation’s historical shortcomings.
Instead, RNC speakers celebrated a diverse American republic that places individual liberty and opportunity at the center of private and public life, one that has delivered freedom and prosperity to more people from more places and every walk of life than any other system or nation in history.
Republicans’ uplifting America/Americans First, pro-life, personal redemption, growth, prosperity, law and order message will resonate in November, including among many registered Democrats.
