Night 3 of “Chaos in Cleveland” started to get serious when Ivanka Trump hit the podium. She may not be as hyped up as her brothers but she is a calmer, more precise speaker. She did the one thing no ne else in his or her speeches did. She praised her father without attacking Clinton and more important she dove right into Democratic policies and tried to grab them for her father. She sounded like anything but a Republican but she was selling what people, not GOP bosses, want to hear. Of course the question is… is her father up to his daughter’s expectations? She did a good job but if it weren’t for her father, she’d be a Democrat. Her words, presented Trump as almost a viable candidate for president…almost.
But then Trump came on to the podium and the first thing he did was accept the people’s nomination. Not for the Republican candidacy but for the Presidency of the United States. Jumping the shark again Don. No hubris here.
Trump immediately jumped into the national safety issue. It’s obvious that he sees it as a minority and immigrant issue. He throws out a lot of numbers and all of them are suspect or completely false. This is where his penchant for lying gets him in trouble.. He talks of the borders being a problem but never mentions the guns that killed the people he is speaking about.
The speech is successful because it reaches the audience it is aimed at. Much of it is based on lies and completely wrong, or unworkable, just as most of his other programs have been since their inception. He raves about keeping our steel workers and miners working. He doesn’t say how he will accomplish this, especially considering the fact that most of the steel workers have permanently lost those jobs to mechanization and really need to be trained to do new jobs. He doesn’t seem to understand that the miners long ago lost their jobs to the huge draglines that now cut off the tops of mountains. No one goes into the ground anymore. In his ignorance he illustrates the stupidity of the GOP platform that states that is environmentally friendly and seeks to revitalize the poisonous coal industry
He swears to eliminate Obamacare and to dump TSA but doesn’t say anything about how he is going tomake either happen. More importantly, he doesn’t say what he is going to replace them with. Trump promises his mindless throng whatever they want to hear, without any concept of how to accomplish any of these promises. “Because I say so,” doesn’t really do if for most of us.
He promises to cut taxes from 39% to 24% for the highest tax bracket, never explaining where he’s going to get the money to run the government if he gives each billionaire $1.3 million a year in tax savings. Then of course he promises huge infrastructure and military programs that will add trillions to the debt with no way to pay for them.
But the bottom line has to be, if you are looking for a speech that makes the people at the convention happy, this was definitely one that did. I have never seen so many smiling, badly dressed white people in one place in my whole life.
So how did he do? Well, if you ignore the fact checkers he only did a little bad. But almost all the statistics he quoted in his sections on law and order, the economy, immigration and the military were either incorrect or downright lies. This was true to a lesser degree of all the other components of this ultra long speech. But despite his battle with the facts, Trump definitely appealed to his base. The big question is will this mean, nasty and ultra dark, speech appeal at all to the uncommitted voters he so desperately needs to make a race of this election.
As to the question of whether or not the convention was a success. The answer depends to a great extent on what you were looking for it to do. If you wanted it to prove that Trump and his bunch of hacks could run a big time operation, it failed. There was one screw up after another. Speeches were stolen, schedules weren’t met, people were allowed to speak that had the destruction of Trump as their goals and there was a general atmosphere of chaotic blundering.
Trump promised the greatest show ever and failed to deliver. His celebrity speakers were third and fourth rate losers. His party speakers were at best second string. His Miss Universe ready family looked okay and even for the most part spoke okay but the were no substitute for former Presidents and big time current pols. Only Paul Ryan fit that role and he was at best unenthusiastic.
The people in the hall loved him and his kids but then they were preconditioned to do so. The big question; did he pull in any number of unaffiliated voters?, is yet to be answered but this writer will be extremely surprised if that happens. His bullyish tone, the one that appeals to the fanatic Right isn’t the right one to appeal to centrist voters. His militant and bigoted stands; the ones that have David Duke jumping up and down and cheering, are anathema to any thinking voter. Looking in from the outside it looks very much like he solidified his base and lost the election.