Our team was on the prowl this week as the Republican National Committee's Convention formalized the Nomination of Former President Trump and Senator JD Vance as the Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential Nominees.
Our team pulled together a snapshot of the deliberations courtesy of the Washington Post, the New Yorker, the Financial Times, and other valued partners:
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July 18-19, 2024
By Marc Cooper
I’ve listened to Trump’s interminable, meandering, rambling, incoherent, often off topic nomination acceptance speech as I continued to stab my wrist with needles. It was so long that Fidel woke up from the grave to tell him to STFU already. The longest convention speech in modern America.
Didn’t make me angry. Just bored the stuffing out of me.
This will be a relatively short Scoop as I don’t think there is much I can say about Donald Trump that you already do not know or have not read elsewhere. As promised, he was much more subdued than usual at least until the concluding minutes when he dialed up a bit. Of course, in the best tradition of 1930’s fascists, he blamed ALL of America’s ills on what are the MAGA stand in for Jews --- “immigrants!” Here we go again that Biden is giving them direct passage from jails, prisons, and mental hospitals so they can take your job, poison your blood line, rape your wives and spike your kid’s Jello with Fentanyl.
A lot of people are reticent to ever draw parallels with Hitler and the Nazis. It should not be done sparingly. That said, the MAGA rhetoric on “migrants” is IDENTICAL to that used by the Nazis in the 1930’s to whip up an entire population into believing that the one per cent of the population that was Jewish were the mortal enemy of German civilization. Hitler knew when he came to power that most Germans just did not care as much about Jews as he did so with Goebbels he embarked on a plan to progressively vilify them. In our case, that process of vilification has been underway for years and there should be no surprise, only disgust, that the convention floor tonight was flooded with professionally printed posters reading Mass Deportations Now! Not fascists?
Trump gave a long, detailed, self-pitying account of his near assassination and he blatantly milked the story for every drop of political juice he could. If anybody else puts the shooting in a political context — like Trump is the primary promoter of rhetorical political violence in America— they are immediately denounced as inappropriate ghouls. But it’s just hunky dory that Trump totally politicizes his wounding for political gain in an extended sob story on national TV.
He looked like hell by the way. Puffy and sweaty and he read his speech off the Teleprompter as if he was reading it for the first time. Not a great reader. A pretty flat and somewhat distanced delivery. Like, he’s bored too and just has to get through this to get back into power.
I am not going to say anything more about his speech because there is nothing more to say except it was the usual mix of lies, distortions and empty promises as always merely delivered in a lower register. And make no mistake, even while reading, Trump still got in a whole lot of incoherent rambling…as always… and as always ignored by the media. It sounded like half the speech was improvised and it sounded like it.
If this were the first time we were seeing Trump and didn’t know his history, this speech would have been his ruin. It was not as bad as Biden’s debate debacle but it was by any mature standard a different sort of debacle. An imbecilic old man telling long pointless stories punctuated with calls to round up migrants. Insane.
My friends, he is totally beatable, at least if somebody actually tried to beat him! He is a small old man in decline and is not a colossus. He is hated, appropriately, by more than half the country. And any half way decent Democrat could beat him. As of this writing Thursday night, it seems certain that Biden will be out by Monday if not sooner. Good.
And whatever process the Democrats come up with to replace him the choice will be Kamala Harris. If you don’t understand that and why, read no further as your interest in politics is too superficial to follow. Note, I am not saying she would be the best candidate. I am saying for those who understand politics she is the ineitable replacement.
Yes, Kamala is a gamble Not our best hand. But a stronger one that Biden. I’m a poker player so if you play no limit this is how I would rank the strength of their respective hands. Biden is holding 7-2 off suit. Kamala holds J-10 suited. At the moment, and I mean this moment only, Trump has got KQ off suit.
Let me quickly make these data points about what now looks like a coming Kamala candidacy. We all know her weaknesses and she very well might flop. But:
n She takes the generational issue off the table
n She takes the impairment issue off the table
n Yes, she’s a prosecutor. Hang a lantern on that and go after the convicted felon
n Her entry would re-center abortion in the race. Be advised for the first time in history a RNC did not mention the word abortion. It’s kryptonite.
n She completely upends the current dynamic that has done nothing except depress the Democratic electorate. Instead of a Strong Trump Versus Weak Biden Dynamic we could have a Feisty Smart Woman Versus and Aged Mysoginist who got Roe V Wadwe over turned and who has been adjudicated as a sexual abuser and rapist.
Cards in the air! Let’s beat these fascists. +++
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