Step right on up to the Grimmest Show on Earth
Why was the Republican National Convention, almost entirely pretaped and virtual, so unnerving? I became a gibbering wreck this week but kept watching, the cold hollowness of my heart matched by the cold hollowness of the huge Republican stage set and the mendacity of the pinwheeleyed speakers in their distinctive costumes.
The Trump esthetic is a strange look indeed. It is, more than anything, vertical. The convention hall, the templelike Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., was the main backdrop, built in 1934 to reflect “the dignity and power of the nation.” In those days, classical revival rendered in Indiana limestone and clogged with elephantine columns did the trick.
President Donald Trump loves soaring structures, presumably because they emphasize personal power — “Look, it’s me, flanked by these very beautiful fluted mega-pillars, plus they filmed ‘Top Chef’ here” — which is why Trump is hoping to mandate this architecture for all future federal buildings.
I always worry when shouty authoritarian leaders develop an interest in huge-scale architecture that will last 1,000 years because, you know. Trump famously has no taste, which is why he built nothing of interest after inheriting his father’s real estate business and went into hotels, just shoebox steel, tinted glass and lobbies with orange paisley marble stylings. But Trump does know that one roaring figure backed by stone verticals — plus the wall of vertical flags that are the American equivalent of searchlights shooting up into the black sky — can be compelling. They certainly were at Nuremberg.
No, I am not comparing Kimberly Guilfoyle or even Trump to Hitler. But the convention was visually so dark and fearful. Staging the final night on the White House lawn was eerie, with Trump’s guests packed tight and unmasked. Some will soon fall ill. It began to rain.
Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, patted thick sweat from his face as he watched his own pretaped speech, then palmed some of it off onto the bare arm of his girlfriend. Twitter recoiled, loudly as always.
Ratings were relatively low. The Republican party may not have considered that Americans in their living rooms, frantic about finances and huddling from COVID-19, might prefer the comforting tones of the Democratic convention to the shadowy massed power of a show that ignored the recent, painful and protracted deaths of 180,000 Americans and counting. We shall see.
The most contemptuous thing the Republicans did was select ordinary, badly dressed Americans as if they were dolls in the attic and make them give wooden speeches, as if that’s all it will take to win Wisconsin and Minnesota. There was the logger, the mother of disabled child, the cop, the football coach, etc.
Republicans enjoy patronizing the poor. Men must be badly dressed, especially rural men who may well have been assigned those cardboard suits. Men are the base, the default, their clumsy bodies a means of moving their brains and common sense around the room.
There is, however, a Trump esthetic for Republican women, and the ’80s have called the bailiffs, they want it back right now. They aren’t blond, they’re platinum blond, and that’s not an easy look. Nor are hair extensions, which can be clipped, taped, woven in, prebonded, fused or micro-linked to your regular hair, whatever, but it’s a project. The ends are fanned or corkscrewed, screaming, “I am overtreated and about to snap.”
The makeup is so heavy, it’s more like drywall plastering, no, make that tuck-pointing (as in my own grim-faced Starstyled mug shot). Jewel tones are favoured: red, cobalt, Tiffany in Tiffany blue, Jackie O pink, and coral, and matching needle heels.
When sass was required, Tiffany slashed her bell-bottoms at the knee. “As a recent graduate, I can relate to so many of you who might be looking for a job,” she said, and viewers ceased to mock her split-level pant legs, for they now had red meat.
Clueless Republican planners allowed Melania Trump to wear bright green on the final night, thus allowing Lincoln Project attack ads to project videos of violent street protests onto her green-screen dress. But she had previously torn down Rose Garden crab apple trees for stealing her focus, so maybe she didn’t mind her outfit being, literally, a riot.
I do think it’s a first for a convention to display injections of physical disgust into the airspace. Pre-Giuliani, a mendacious and discredited anti-abortion speaker took the biscuit. Abby Johnson told viewers, “I know what abortion smells like. Did you know that abortion even had a smell?” *
It was a frozen moment. Suddenly everyone was eager to see Eric Trump speak, and you don’t often hear people say that.
Next up: the September debate, same but less odorous, one hopes. No university wants to host — all the street-murdering puts people off — but if it happens, watch this space.
*I have watched women have abortions. If the room smells of anything, it is antiseptic and relief.