The repression toward the “Never Trump” delegates is frightening; echoing what’s happening in Turkey right now. All semblance that this is an exercise in democracy is gone. At past conventions, the names of losing candidates were placed in nomination, and cheered. That won’t happen in Istanbul, er, I mean Cleveland. With the party more divided than ever, it’s overcompensating by making itself a monolith of enforced Trump obeisance. This display of authoritarianism is a scary foretaste of what a Trump presidency would be.
The convention’s emotional tone is also frightening: all anger, resentment, and fear.
America has problems; overall, I disapprove of Obama’s record; I loathe Hillary.
These Republicans have whipped themselves into such a frenzy of Hillary-hatred that all objectivity is lost – especially toward their own, ahem, flawed candidate. Whose faults of character, honesty, ethics, sense, and all other qualities desirable in a president, are mountains that make hers look like molehills. Not to mention his spitting on principles long dear to Republicans. Again the comparison to Turks whose hero-worship of Erdogan blinds them to his being a monster leading them to perdition.
Yes, America has real problems, but I actually didn’t hear any of them addressed last night. Instead, I saw a crazed fixation on terrorism. Fact: America’s own gun culture kills a thousand times more of us than terrorism. But of course Republicans are ga-ga for guns.
Meantime, I heard not a word about our dire fiscal outlook, on a path toward widening and ultimately ruinous deficits; about obstacles faced by American businesses, especially the small ones so crucial to our economy; about diminished opportunities for less educated Americans. In fairness, last night’s theme was security; tonight’s will be the economy. But don’t bet on any serious discussion. In fact Trump, the business genius, has laid out plans to make our economic problems much worse, with deficits even bigger (by far) and insane trade policies that will screw U.S. consumers while making the whole world (including us) less prosperous.
Yet is America really in such bad shape? The economy is growing, unemployment is relatively low, median wages are rising, the stock market reaches new highs. The great majority enjoys a living standard better than ever, especially considering all the boons of modern technology. Race relations are hugely better than in most of our history. Crime is way down. (And your chances of being a terrorist victim are something like one in a million.)