Used to be it was rude to be talking politics or religion - at least that is how I remember the reason she gave. That was back in the Sixties or Seventies.
Call me rude.
Politics have too long trended towards the theology for Republicans. Now the Republicans have melded religion into politics and politcsinto religion.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba said Trump “did not just take a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania. He has and will continue to take them for each and every one of us.”
While other Trump supporters have posited that God intervened to save Trump, a couple of speakers seemed to go a little further to suggest it showed God’s favoritism.
3 takeaways from Trump’s speech, final night of the Republican convention (The Washington Post).
Illinois delegate Kenneth Jochum donned a fake ear bandage with an American flag printed on it that said “Trump 2024.”
“He is going to bring our country back as one nation under God,” Jochum said.
The religious sentiment in the convention hall was so strong that, earlier in the evening when conservative commentator Tucker Carlson spoke, someone shouted from the floor that Trump was protected by God.
“I think it was divine intervention,” Carlson said. “But the effect it had on Donald Trump—he was no longer just a political party’s nominee, or a former president, or a future president. This was the leader of a nation.”
From The Bulwark's Trump Emerges from Convention a Republican Caesar.
What does this say about the man killed and God?
Probably nothing, self-righteousness has its own way of seeing. Take a look at Jacobin's So Much for a Newly Reborn Republican Party:
But no one at the Republican National Convention (RNC) seemed to be capable of remembering that. Ben Carson, for example, rattled off the trials the former president had endured, saying that “first they tried to ruin his reputation,” and later “they tried to imprison him,” and then “they tried to bankrupt him,” and most recently “they tried to kill him.” In this telling, Trump was shot not by a twenty-year-old registered Republican with unclear motives but by a shadowy They.
The Bulwark's The Political-Entertainment Complex hits on a point I made on this blog - the pro-wrestling mentality that Trump brings to politics upends traditional ideas of facts and truth and reality.
Here's what Trump skeptics see in Hogan’s speech: “Why is this clown up there? This is Idiocracy. Don’t they know he’s a racist? Don’t these so-called conservatives understand he made a sex tape? Don’t the free speech warriors know he killed Gawker with Peter Thiel’s help? Won’t someone please think of the hypocrisy!” The Biden team is clipping his speech and sharing it on social media for dunks. They clearly think it’s good for them to show Hogan up there, over and over, amping up the crowd.
Here’s what your average low-education white voter in the Gen X cohort sees: “Hahaha, yeah, it’s Hulkamania, remember take your vitamins, say your prayers, the 48-inch pythons? I remember that. I remember being young, and having fun. Things were better then, right? When I was 13? I would very much like things to be better again.”
You can mock it all you want, but it’s a vibes play, and vibes matter more to politics than a lot of people seem willing to admit. It may have been dumb, it may have felt low-class, but Hogan up there, ripping off his shirt like the Hulkster of old, giving that old carny razzle dazzle to an amped-up crowd: It’s a winning, nostalgic moment, and one specifically designed to activate feelings of warmth in the voters Trump’s team is targeting. And sneering at that moment only reinforces the resentment centers primed by Vance’s ascendancy.
Trump is a conservative because he says he is and the Republicans say he is. That he has nota fiscally conservative bone in his body does not matter. That he is a self-confessed sexual predator does not matter to the Christian Right because they want what he is selling: worldly power. Yes, there is one born every minute.
Jacobin's So Much for a Newly Reborn Republican Party makes some points that I have not seen elsewhere. Last night I sent an email to myfriend DM asking fi people are dumber now than when we were kids. He wondered if that was a rhetorical question. Maybe, I should have aksed if we were more attuned to facts and reality. I do not see from the following that the Republicans live in the world of reality:
... What fascinated me was seeing the Republican convention delegates gathered to nominate Donald Trump and J. D. Vance cheering at the reminder that Trump brought us closer to war with Iran than we’ve been at any point since the hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981 and duly booing Joe Biden for allegedly being soft on Hamas. I’ve been hearing for years about a “realignment” that’s made the GOP the party of anti-interventionism. But you certainly wouldn’t know it from listening to the convention.
***
Similarly, the “realignment” of the political parties is supposed to have involved Republicans rejecting free-market orthodoxy to embrace economic populism. But the convention cheered House majority leader Steve Scalise for reminding them of President Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and promising that within the first hundred days of a second Trump term with a Republican majority, those tax cuts would be made permanent. Trump himself bragged about instituting “the biggest tax cuts ever.” Apparently, none of these Republicans received the realignment memo.
***
This, at the end of the day, is what “realignment” means. Trump’s GOP will continue to cater to business interests at home and project imperial military power abroad. Comparatively honest ghouls like Nikki Haley and Steve Scalise will sell this package with good old-fashioned Reaganite branding, excitedly reminding their listeners that Trump is the president who tore up the Iran deal and passed a big tax cut for the rich. Tucker Carlson and J. D. Vance will use different words — ones designed to excite people who prefer to believe that reelecting a billionaire union-buster to the presidency will somehow stick it to big business.
Reagan made conservatives out as practical-minded, common-sensical down-to-earth types and liberals as impractical day-dreamers wearing rose colored glasses. Trump conservatives wear blindfolds following the voice of their leader.
From Jacobin's Donald Trump’s Near Death Has Reenergized His Movement:
Many described a sense of relief. Trump’s death would have not only been the end of a beloved political figure, it seemed, but of an irreplaceable political force, no matter how deep they imagined their bench.
Many others described the political equivalent of a shot of adrenaline.
“We’re all jacked up,” said one. “We’re more determined than ever.”
The candidate’s near-death experience had, for attendees, made clear the election’s existential stakes, as it hit home how quickly and easily their political project could have collapsed. Like their political opponents, these Republicans talked about November as a must-win election that will decide the country’s future.
Back to The Bulwark's Trump Emerges from Convention a Republican Caesar.
Thursday was the climax of the adoration convention Trump always wanted—and an illustration of how fully he has remade the party he now leads.
Gone was any vestige of dissent or ideological disagreement. The social conservatives in the party stayed muted as Trump jettisoned many of their cultural issues. The national security hawks stayed quiet as he picked a vice president who shares his skepticism about the Ukraine war. The old establishment didn’t bother to even show up.
In its place was a blend of entertainment, religiosity, and politics unlike anything in modern convention history. Retired pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan amped up the crowd of “Trumpamaniacs,” called Trump a “gladiator,” and tore off his own tank top—his signature move from his days in the ring. He was followed, in one of the more disjointing pairings, by preacher Franklin Graham. Then came rapper Kid Rock, who repurposed his track “American Bad Ass” in fist-pumping homage to Trump. And mixed martial arts promoter Dana White introduced Trump, hailing his toughness.
God help us they do not pull the country over the cliff.
I do not understand all this sense of triumphalism, and Trump Can Be Beaten gives me backing for this feeling.
His lead is growing. He’s ahead in all the swing states. He’s expanding the map by putting Virginia and New Hampshire in play. He’s the clear favorite.
But also: He has spent three weeks running against a zombie campaign. Everything has gone Trump’s way. And he still hasn’t been able to break 48 percent. He’s still only leading by +3 nationally.
What I have seen of the polling -and I do not have the time to go looking far afield for them - has the race within the margin of error. Even with all the outcry about Biden's debate performance, Trump is not running away with support from the voters. As Chris Cilliza points out in The Morning: Good Trump and very bad Trump, Trump remains the deeply flawed candidate. I think it will come down not to enthusiam for Biden buyt hatred of Trump that will drive voters.
Of course, the Democrats are wringing their hands. Rightfully so, but no to for the usual reason. I thnk Biden will be fine as President; but I pay more attention towhat he does then to how he speaks. I think Putin is not worrying about Biden's debate performance but how Biden has stiffened NATO and just keeps supporting Ukraine.
It amy well be Biden is gone; that seems likely. If he goes, it will be to beat Trump.
Obama tells allies Biden’s path to winning reelection has greatly diminished (The Washington Post), but this is not a coup. That seems to be the Republican stance; albeit a wrong one:
None of these descriptions actually fit; Democrats are trying to persuade Biden to drop out, not overturn the primary results themselves. But as the Biden loyalists get a little quieter, there’s certainly value for Republicans in framing things this way in hopes of riling them (or perhaps even Biden) up.
3 takeaways from Trump’s speech, final night of the Republican convention.
The Republicans nominated a reprehensible man who is anathema to what used to be Republican ideals; the Democrats want to give the people the best candidate possible to stop Trump.
For those who think facts and reality make for good government and better politics, there was fact-checking of Trump and his GOP. CNN has Fact check: Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech and The Guardian has Fact-checked: Republican national convention and Trump’s speech.
Whether Biden drops out is not as important as not thinking Trump is a good choice for this country. I do not agree with the whole of Democrats’ Defeatism Is a Form of Climate Denial as I think once in power the Republicans will not be dislodged again.
Here, is where I leave you.
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