As the digital curtain gets ready to rise on the hastily cobbled together Republican National Convention, after two venue cancellations, and two more passed on after that — Mt. Rushmore and Gettysburg — more details are coming out about what to expect. This looks to be a very strange four nights of political theater. We learn that the Trump campaign hired Sadoux Kim, who was co-executive producer of “Celebrity Apprentice” to produce the show, because of course they did.
So the convention is set to be a reality TV show, just like the State of the Union address in February — and just like the entire Trump presidency. The choice this year is not Democrat v. Republican, it is Goverance v. Fringe TV. And that was the choice in 2016. A lot of people just didn’t know it.
And the Trump convention will start a half hour earlier than the DNC, and run for two and a half hours each night, the better to “capture viewership” we are told. Now that plan is subject to veto by Fox News, because it will cut into the last half hour of Tucker Carlson’s show and talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Oh, and did I mention, they decided at the last minute to make this freak show a “people’s convention?” Politico:
Nailing down venues during the coronavirus pandemic was its own obstacle. Different locations for Trump’s speech were considered, including Gettysburg and Mount Rushmore, before he opted for the White House South Lawn.
Given their late decision to focus on everyday Trump supporters, organizers also had to make sure the program didn’t get overrun by politicians angling for speaking time. While the convention will feature some up-and-coming Republicans — such as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who asked the president for a slot — officials had to politely let others down. It remains unclear, for example, whether Florida Sen. Rick Scott will present.
Some people originally slated to speak in Jacksonville were cut in place of others who would fit better into the overall concept of a “people’s convention.” Aides met several times after business hours at the headquarters to go over prospects before bringing a revised list to Trump.
They ultimately settled on 125 names. Among the picks was the St. Louis couple who earlier this summer pointed firearms at protesters. The idea of including them was raised and immediately agreed upon at a planning meeting. Trump aides saw it as an opportunity to highlight the president’s support for gun rights and to agitate liberals.
They have also recruited speakers who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 but will declare their support for him this time.
Reading between the lines, the show won’t be “overrun by politicians” because there is a paucity of them who want to publicly cast their lot with Trump — that’s the reason for the “late decision” to make this a MAGAt tribute show; although we are told that Elise Stefanik and Jim Jordan will be there. That should add a real touch of class, as always. I wonder if Jordan will wear a coat?
Personally, I can’t wait to hear from the people who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, but will vote for him now. They were where, living in Atlantis in 2016, and couldn’t surface in time to register and vote? The submarines weren’t running?
We’ll find out soon enough. Their testimonies should be…interesting. A few final thoughts.
The goal was to make it a gripping TV show. […]
Democrats “told a lot of really nice, compelling stories that made you feel,” [convention veteran Russ] Schriefer said. “Good television is always something that makes you feel.”
What they don’t get — or probably, the reality TV producer does get it, but doesn’t know what to do about it — is that the DNC worked so well because of the honesty and truth contained therein. Joe Biden’s speech was as good as it was because he’s a decent, sincere man with a grip on the issues facing this nation. Ditto for Kamala Harris. The Democrats were not looking to make a great TV show, they were looking to clearly state their case and motivate people to go out and vote. The quality of the show was a by product of achieving that goal. It wasn’t the goal itself.
Trump Republicans, on the other hand, are looking to make a great TV show. Period. Because that is as high a goal as their standard bearer is capable of, and he’s a reflection of a party that got so fragmented and toxic that it self-destructed with his “presidency.” The GOP is in its death throes. They will unquestionably rebuild, in some other form, but history will mark that the turning point between the old Republican party and the new was this mis-administration.
Meanwhile, the television president obsesses on television, because for him, that’s the whole enchilada. Get the right image on tape, because perception is everything and perception trumps reality every time in Trump world. Trump has no tools to deal with reality, never has, but he’s good at television. That’s the only thing he’s ever been good at. And far greater minds than his have mused, and will continue to do so for many years, that, astonishingly, that was enough to get him into the highest office in our land.
Trump’s relationship with television is inverted and perversely so. He has never learned that the great thing about television is how it captures life in real time, because for him, it is life. All he knows is image. Form, never substance. Trump doesn’t live in the real world, he lives in television. He may be flesh and blood, but his life is rows of pixels. He only exists when the camera is on. He is a simulacrum of a president, not a real one. His focus, since he took office, was never to solve problems and govern, it was only to give the appearance of doing so and then brag about it, so he would be lionized and the emptiness inside him fed for a time. And this convention will reflect all that, as the DNC reflected what the Democrats are about.
No more cloud machines and light shows, like in 2016. No coronation. And no grand, historic backdrop, like Mt. Rushmore or Gettysburg, to make him look bigger, more consequential. Just Donald Trump, a pathetic, desperate little man and his roster of failures, out on the lawn, trying to persuade you that it was all somebody else’s fault and he’s here to save you. And you need him, because without him, you’re screwed. And his spawn and his squad of sycophants are only there to amplify the same dark, ludicrous message, that without Donald Trump, man, you so screwed; because he’s the only thing holding it together. He’s indispensable. America dies when he loses. That’s his message. It should be quite a show.
There is no way I will watch this convention of losers.
Indeed, I think watching the Harlan Ellison documentary on Amazon Prime, “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” , might not only be a better use of our time, but an excellent middle finger to what’s left of the Republican party (which he hated).
What is Dreams With Sharp Teeth? It’s a documentary about what? This actually sounds interesting.
I just found it. I’m streaming it now. Man, he gained a lot of weight. Not that I should talk.
As far back as the 1990s, he said he was getting to be a fat old man. But goddamn if the energy on him made that about the LAST thing I noticed.
I don’t mean it as a diss. He was so fit in his youth, bodybuilding and what not. I was a lot fitter myself than I am now. I also did bodybuilding. I was identifying is all. That was a good documentary. I’ve got H.E.’s official biography, but I haven’t had a chance to read it, except for a few early chapters.
I doubt I’ll watch it. I’ll keep my tv on something else. No ratings for *rump.
Nope, no way could I stomach what is going to go on. I hate what it does to my MSNBC evening line up though. Guess I’ll have to finish watching the last season of Game of Thrones. Expecting it to be as bloody as the American Carnage Convention.
Blech. We’ll know all we need to know after it’s done. I’ll check in with Trevor instead. I’m sure the ratings will such but 45 will lie about it. Hell, he just had a talk with God! He’s hearing things now.
Ratings will SUCK not such. grrrrr
To borrow Christopher Guest’s routine, I plan to spread out a box of tacks on the floor, points up. Then I’m going to strip naked & roll back & forth, back & forth on the floor. Finally, I’m going to sit in a tub fun of gin. Ewwww. That smarts.
Oh, & i hate when that happens.
They’re going to have Pompeous. From Jerusalem, in the country he refers to as the “Holy Land”. It’s almost certainly illegal, but they’ve got the AG to protect them.
I can’t remember the name of it, and once it made the news I believe it dropped off the radar but back in 2016 there was an Israeli version of Erik Prince’s Blackwater, and they too were mucking around to help Trump and hurt Clinton. Netanyahu has his own problems and would definately find a GOP administration willing to look the other way on many matters that might make for some uncomfortable diplomatic back and forth with a Democratic one. I suspect that as Blackwater, and Cambridge Analytica for that matter did that Israeli group laid low for a bit and reformed under a new banner.
Yes, I realize I might get flamed as being anti-semitic for saying what I just said, but Jewish people in this country come in different political leanings just like every other group does, and some of them are fervently in the GOP’s camp. More importantly though in Israel the conservatives, who happen to have held on to power for a long time now are allies of convenience with the U.S. Christians who are fervently Republican. That group wants all Muslims driven out of that land, believing it to be TEMPORARILY the province of Jewish people. I say temporary because when the end of times so many of them want to hurry up and begin happens any Jew who doesn’t convert will of course be cast into hell. Israel of course knows this, but they are smarter and more savvy than “Christian conservatives and use them just as the GOP power structure started using them when Reagan formally made the alliance.
Whatever one feels about the State of Israel they are a proud, smart and tough people and their conservatives are fierce in promoting their country and conservative agenda. It’s made for some tension between their country and ours at times, but there’s far less pushback from us when Republicans are in charge. They know it and take advantage of it but our GOP doesn’t get that.
All spin.
Zero substance.
That’s all it’s ever been. It’s a sad testament to the enormous power of television that a phony, show only, no substance, could get where Trump got. You talk about “all hat, no cattle” he’s the poster child.
2020 Election Already Stolen?
Yes, Says Top Investigator Greg Palast In his latest book How Trump Stole 2020 – The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters, investigator Greg Palast kicks the leaves upon the ground to uncover a sordid plan to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming November election. Published by Seven Stories Press and illustrated by Ted Rall, the book begins with a review of Donald Trump’s modus operandi in 2016 and warns that “unless we wise up, 2020 will be déjà vu all over again.”
Palast gives a case-by-case explanation of several of Trump’s tactics, mainly aimed at eliminating black voters in the Old South. For instance, 340,134 Georgians were purged from the voter lists incorrectly. Writes Palast, “More than a third of a million wrongly purged – in this one state. The list was more than 74 percent wrong. Three out of four.
Is the opening photo real? If it is – the letters in TRUMP are so large that it makes him look puny! Sometimes over doing it can have the opposite effect.
I don’t know where that photo came from. It’s from 2016, I can tell you that much, but whether it appeared at the convention then, or if it was somebody’s extrapolation, I don’t know.
The problem isn’whether he can win the election.
The problem is how he is prevented from stealing it again, given the help from Russia McConnell and the RNC.