Four nights of Trumps at the Republican Convention
La convention républicaine placée sous le signe de la famille Trump
La famille Trump vous présente son programme.
Aux États-Unis, les candidats à la présidentielle acceptent leur nomination à la tête du parti lors d'une convention s’étendant sur plusieurs jours. Ces manifestations, retransmises à la télévision, ont pour but de présenter le programme de chaque candidat. Cette année, pour séduire les électeurs, Donald Trump a fait appel au charisme de ses éternels alliés : sa famille.
NIGHT 1: MONDAY
On the first night of the convention, President Donald Trump and his political allies made it clear: They intended to engage in a sweeping revisionism about Trump’s management of the coronavirus pandemic, his record on race relations and much else.
2. At times, the speakers and prerecorded videos appeared to be describing an alternate reality: one in which the nation had not surpassed 180,000 dead from the coronavirus; in which Trump had not consistently ignored serious warnings about the disease; in which the president had not spent much of his term appealing openly to xenophobia and racial animus; and in which someone other than Trump had presided over an
economy that began crumbling in the spring.
3. “As the virus began to spread, the president acted quickly and ensured ventilators got to hospitals that needed them most,” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, said as part of a vehement address that framed the election as a choice between “church, work and school” against “rioting, looting and vandalism.”
NIGHT 2: TUESDAY
4. The speakers — including three from Trump’s immediate family — hailed the president as a friend to women and a champion of criminal justice reform. In videos recorded at the White House, Trump pardoned a Nevada man convicted of bank robbery and swore in five new American citizens, all of them people of color, in a miniature naturalization ceremony.
5. Melania Trump offered a rare show of sympathy at the convention to Americans suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as a forceful case for her husband’s reelection, recasting his rougher edges as a necessary part of his political persona. “Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking,” the first lady declared.
6. There was no effort to reconcile the dissonance between what was said and the president’s actual policies and actions: the allegations of sexual assault against him, the appeals to racial bigotry and a border crackdown that separated migrant families.
7. Finally, the lack of masks throughout the evening, as The New York Times’ Alan Rappeport pointed out, was possible because of the ability to tap “the expansive COVID testing capacity at the White House to create the impression that we are in a post-pandemic world.”
NIGHT 3: WEDNESDAY
8. Numerous Republicans led by Vice President Mike Pence assailed Joe Biden for what they claimed was his tolerance of the vandalism that had grown out of racial justice protests : “Last week, Joe Biden didn’t say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country,” said Pence, “We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color.”
9. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee gave a dark speech, claiming that Democrats wanted to “cancel” law enforcement and service members. “As hard as Democrats try, they can’t cancel our heroes. So they try to defund them — our military, our police, even ICE — to take away their tools to keep us safe.”
10. The evening showed an intensified effort to lift Trump’s standing among women with testimonials vouching for him as empathetic and as a champion of women in the workplace.
11. Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s campaign managers in 2016, made the case that Trump, contrary to his image, was a proponent of women’s empowerment. “A woman in a leadership role can still seem novel,” Conway said. “Not so for President Trump. For decades, he has elevated women to senior positions in business and in government. He confides in and consults us, respects our opinions, and insists that we are on equal footing with the men.”
NIGHT 4: THURSDAY
12. In a long address, Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination. “Joe Biden is not the savior of America’s soul,” he said. “He is the destroyer of America’s jobs, and if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of America’s greatness.” Trump criticized Biden for saying he would be willing, as president, to shut down the country again if necessary.
13. “The cost of the Biden shutdown would be measured in increased drug overdoses, depression, alcohol addiction, suicides, heart attacks, economic devastation, job loss, into much more,” he said. “Joe Biden’s plan is not a solution to the virus, but rather it is a surrender to the virus.” Trump claimed that he was basing his response on “the science, the facts, and the data,” even though the number of positive cases has risen where schools and businesses have reopened.
14. All week, speakers have described Trump as a caring, empathic leader, and in doing so have ascribed direct quotations to the president that do not track with any public statements he has made.
15. No convention speaker took as much creative license with quotations from Trump as his own daughter Ivanka Trump. During her remarks introducing her father, she mentioned unfair prison sentences conducted in the U.S, then proceeded to point out : “Donald Trump is a voice for those who had been unfairly silenced in our prison system.” Later that night, the president highlighted his executive order demanding 10year prison sentences for anyone convicted of tearing down historical statues and monuments, including those built to glorify Confederates.
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