Jul.18

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RNC, Day 3: It's Vance's Party; Cry if You Want To

The theme of the third day of the Republican National Convention was "Make America Strong Once Again" (national defense). Of the three days thus far, this was the one that most clearly adhered to the battle plan, as the day's proceedings were VERY militaristic. That said, the real story of the day was Sen. J.D. Vance's (R-OH) introduction to a national audience.

If you want to watch, here is C-SPAN's coverage of the day's main session:

Yesterday, we provided a video of paint drying, in the event that readers preferred to watch something more interesting than a political convention. Reader C.H. in Atlanta, GA, observes that paint drying might be a bit too raucous, and that this video of grass growing might be more suitable.

And now, our take on RNC Day 3:

1. We've Been Remiss, Part I: When we write these reports, the tendency is to focus on specific moments/speakers, and not so much on meta storylines. So, let's now do something about that. One thing we should have pointed out is that the conventioneers in Milwaukee are VERY enthusiastic. That's generally the case with conventions, since the people who get invitations tend to be the hardcore base. However, it's been a great couple of weeks for the GOP, mostly because it's been a very bad couple of weeks for Joe Biden, and it's clear that the folks in Milwaukee are feeling particularly good.
   
   
2. We've Been Remiss, Part II: Another thing we should have pointed out is that you could watch all 18 hours of C-SPAN video we have linked to, and count the specific policy proposals being made on your fingers, and you would not need your second hand. It's an endless parade of generalities; it's easy enough to say that something should be done about the economy, but it's much harder to say what that thing should be. Is this lack of substance a product of the fact that it's a convention? Yes. Is it also a product of the fact that the modern-day GOP has relatively few policy positions, and the ones it does have are often unpopular? Also yes. In particular, and illustrative of the effort to avoid touchy issues, we are not entirely certain that we've heard any of the 120+ speakers thus far utter the word "abortion." By contrast, at least a dozen speakers have said: "The Democrats don't even know what a woman is," which might be a "zinger" but isn't a policy statement.
   
   
3. We've Been Remiss, Part III: Finally, after Donald Trump was shot, every prominent Democrat in the country expressed relief that he was OK. By contrast, most or all of the prominent Republicans quickly moved to weaponize the attack. That has continued at the convention. There have been plenty of references to Trump being a victim of the Democrats and their rhetoric, but we don't recall a single convention speaker expressing relief that the former president is OK. Not even Trump's kids. Do Republicans only care about Trump the symbol, and not so much about Trump the person? That's certainly the impression that is being given off.
   
   
4. Fact Check: Yesterday, we wrote about Starbucks' support of the RNC, and how that appears to run contrary to the company's left-leaning public image. As several readers wrote in to point out, the story has now been debunked, and nearly all the outlets that ran with it have withdrawn it. It turns out that Starbucks is providing free refreshments for first responders at both conventions, which is not quite the same thing as sponsoring the RNC.
   
   
5. What Does Donald Think?: You have heard "What would Jesus do?" Well, most of the networks covering the convention seem to have decided that a key feature of their coverage needs to be "What does Donald think?" They are mostly doing a lot of split-screens, so you can see both the speaker and how Trump is reacting. The problem here is that he has the exact same facial expression every time, which looks like a grimace, but is probably meant to communicate something like "this is very important and I am taking it very seriously." The look should be familiar to readers, but just in case, here it is:
   
   
   
   In any case, this is not a normal feature of convention coverage, and we don't get the point of featuring him so much, given his well-established lack of emotional range. Sometimes he raises his fist, but that's about it. And note that the above is a photograph; the video camera that's on Trump shoots him from his left side, so it's not even showing the ear bandage.
   
   
6. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): Colin Jost, current co-anchor of "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live, wrote a book declaring that he (Jost) has the world's most punchable face. We think Gaetz should sue for trademark infringement.
   
   
7. Peter Navarro: Trump adviser Peter Navarro got out of the clink yesterday, and promptly made his way to Milwaukee to give a speech. He continued with an ongoing theme of this convention, which is "law and order is the greatest when it's applied to our opponents, but totally unfair and corrupt when applied to us." We would not be doing our job if we did not point out that "the laws only apply to the opposition" is a core element of fascism.
   
   
8. Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND): Wow, he is such a bad public speaker. We guess you don't get a lot of experience speaking before large crowds when you come from a state with only one city of 100,000+. In particular, some people know how to deliver a joke line, some don't, and Burgum definitely doesn't. For his purposes, however, it does not matter. Burgum's speech, heavy on energy-related stuff, was meant for an audience of one, as the Governor was auditioning for appointment as Secretary of Energy in a second Trump administration. If Burgum lands the job, we wonder if he'll be as surprised as Rick Perry was when he learns that his primary responsibility will be to oversee America's nuclear stockpile.
   
   
9. Shabbos Kestenbaum: Kestenbaum was one of yesterday's "regular Americans," to the extent that someone who just graduated Harvard and who is now suing the university for being antisemitic can be considered an average Joe. His speech was a litany of right-wing talking points about higher education, and how universities indoctrinate students, and so on and so forth. However, it was VERY well delivered, especially for a guy in his early twenties who presumably does not have all that much experience speaking before large crowds. One purpose of conventions is to identify future talent (see Obama, Barack at the 2004 convention), and GOP pooh bahs undoubtedly made a point of writing down Kestenbaum's name after what they saw last night. Don't be surprised to see him running for Congress as soon as he's old enough.
   
   
10. Usha Vance and J.D. Vance: The newly-minted VP candidate was introduced by his wife, and then took the floor himself. We have already written that Vance comes with some baggage, in that his hillbilly identity is transparently phony and his past rhetoric has been far-right, anti-Trump and anti-corporation. Each of these things is not great, albeit for different constituencies.
    
    Anyhow, job one (which began with Mrs. Vance) was to humanize the would-be VP. Viewers were advised that Vance was born po' and loves puppies, his kids, his momma and his meemaw (who was, it would seem, armed to the teeth).
    
    After that, and once Mr. Vance took the stage, there were really three themes. The first was that Joe Biden is the personification of everything that is wrong with America, as the President was blamed for everything that Vance could come up with. In particular, we did not realize that Americans want to re-litigate NAFTA, but apparently they do, at least based on the Republican convention. Vance also attacked Biden's policy on China, which is not surprising, but as part of that the Senator also bemoaned how much Chinese fentanyl Biden has allowed into the country. This confused us, because we could have sworn it was undocumented Mexican immigrants who were bringing in all the fentanyl. Is it now every one of America's foreign rivals? Are people dying from illegally imported North Korean fentanyl? Iranian fentanyl? Gasp... Canadian fentanyl? Someone needs to look into this.
    
    Moving along, the second theme was, in so many words, "I love, love, love Donald Trump. Please disregard anything you've heard to the contrary."
    
    And the third theme, which dovetails with the first, was piles and piles of red meat for voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Clearly, Vance is going to be spending much of the campaign in the lower Midwest, telling people in those states that he feels their pain. Bill Clinton could sell that; we'll see if Vance has even a fraction of #42's empathy.
    
    Keep reading for more on Vance.

There you have it. We're 75% of the way through the RNC, which is a pleasing thought. On the other hand, we're only 37.5% of the way through both major-party conventions, which is a little demoralizing. Though if Joe Biden does throw in the towel (see below), it would mean the 2024 Democratic National Convention could be the first truly interesting convention of (Z)'s lifetime. (Z)