By David Brooks on August 28, 2020
Illustration: Rolling Stone
Donald Trump was crowned America’s sole savior at the end of the Republican National Convention, claiming that his Democratic opponents are part of a radical left that seeks to destroy freedoms, values and the American dream.
At no time before have voters faced such a clear choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies or two agendas, he said, and he warned that the United States is the torch that lights up the whole world, but for all our greatness, everything we have achieved is now in jeopardy. This is the most important choice in our country’s history.
The election will “decide whether we save the American dream or allow a socialist agenda to destroy our destiny… Your vote will decide whether we protect Americans who obey the law or give permission to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens”.
He attacked his Democratic opponent with the warning that, “Joe Biden will be the destroyer of American greatness”. He painted Biden as a failed and weak politician during his 47-year political career who has betrayed his people and has always been on the wrong side of history.
Biden is the Trojan horse of socialism, he accused. “No one will be safe in a Biden America,” he added. If the left wins, they will demolish the suburbs, confiscate your guns, and appoint judges who will erase constitutional freedoms.
Trump, as always, praised his so-called achievements, including his immigration policies, and celebrated that today the U.S. borders are more secure than ever and promised that the wall will soon be completed.
He said that in three years we built the strongest economy in the history of the world and celebrated the new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.
He insisted that he led the largest mobilization since World War II to confront what he called the Chinese virus, falsely stating that the death rate in the United States is lower than in Europe, and promising that there will be a vaccine this year.
And speaking of the Asian giant, he warned that if Biden is elected, China will take over the United States.
He used the riots and protests in the cities against the Democrats over and over again, disqualifying, without ever mentioning George Floyd’s name, Black Lives Matter, or the largest protest movement in the history of his country. “If the Democratic Party wants to side with the anarchists, agitators… and the burners, that’s their choice, but the Republican Party will be the voice of the patriotic heroes who keep America safe”.
He accused the left of attacking American institutions, and advised: always remember that you are coming against me because I am fighting for you.
Trump offered his speech accepting his nomination as a Republican candidate from the South Lawn of the White House – breaking the rules once again by using the official residence as part of an election campaign – before more than a thousand guests sitting in chairs without the healthy distance and almost all without masks, after being introduced by his favorite daughter, Ivanka.
The speech summarized the topics that were addressed throughout the four days of this convention, and that will be the content of electoral propaganda to be used during the next 67 days before the election.
Trump and his chorus of speakers addressed the convention’s themes throughout the evening, repeatedly proclaiming themselves as the defenders of the world’s unique country.
Speakers included Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, Trump’s personal advisor and attorney, Rudy Giuliani’s who in his usual hysterical tone warned that Biden is part of the left-wing of Black Lives Matter and Antifa (activists who identify themselves as anti-fascists) who seek to promote their pro-criminal and socialist policies.
Pat Lynch, president of a New York police union, denounced that Democratic politicians have given up our streets and institutions, praising Trump for defending the police. He warned, echoing one of the central messages of this event, “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America. You can have four more years of Trump’s presidency, or you can have no security, no justice, no peace”.
Trump and his accomplices spoke against the backdrop of a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, forest fires in California, anti-racist protests including unprecedented strikes by professional athletes, armed right-wing militias and from a country that is the global epicenter of the pandemic.
Last night and throughout the convention the phrase climate change was never mentioned and it magically transformed the worst handling of the pandemic of all advanced countries into a heroic one by the president and his accomplices. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression was also erased from reality, largely as a result of that handling of the Covid-19.
Although the violence of the riots was reported because of protests against official racism, there was no mention that the man who killed and injured people this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was a pro-Trump fanatic and a member of a supremacist militia; those accused of some of the most serious mass shootings in recent times, such as the one in El Paso and the high school in Florida, also identified themselves as Trump fans.
Nor is there any mention that some 30 million have applied for unemployment benefits, and millions more, the great majority of them migrants, are not entitled to any assistance; almost 30 million do not have enough to eat and some 40 million face the threat of being evicted from their homes.
Although the crises of systemic racism, the pandemic, the economy and the environment laid siege to the Trump convention, the official script offered an invitation to the happiest country in the world, something like Disneyland, and at the same time warned that the election is a fight against the Apocalypse from which only Trump can save the world.
The re-enactment strategy, it seems, is to argue that only Donald Trump can save America from Donald Trump’s America, said veteran anchor and journalist Dan Rather.
Opposition
Meanwhile, the river of defections in his party continued, with more than 300 former officials of the last Republican President George W. Bush – whose absence was the most notable at his party’s national convention, along with dozens of prominent Republican figures – announcing that they would support Democrat Biden.
One block from the White House garden where Trump was giving his speech, a group of activists set up a concert with TOB, a local band that played Go-Go, a funk variant born in the capital city that has accompanied Black Lives Matter protests in that and other cities and achieved its goal of having its musical protest heard during the speech.
As the curtain fell on the Republican convention last night, with a huge fireworks display, and the Washington Monument and the White House as a stage, Trump deserves credit for staging a great work of fiction. But for now, at least until November 3, it is the official reality.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau