Trump’s fantasyland
Voters must decide whether they will live in the real world or a manufactured one.
Americans who found themselves beguiled last week by the fantasy that was the Republican National Convention are in for a rude awakening.
Back in the real world, COVID-19 was not stopped by President Donald Trump’s quick action in January. The economy is not experiencing a V-shaped recovery. Systemic racism exists and remains one of the nation’s most pressing problems. People here also wear masks and keep an appropriate distance to protect their friends, family and neighbors from a deadly infection.
No one expects a political convention to be free of hype, hyperbole and the occasional fib. Even Michelle Obama managed a misleading implication about children in cages during her DNC speech. But the 2020 RNC took fabulist spinning to new levels of deception about the president’s record and that of his rival, Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden.
The staging included the cynical, unprecedented use of the White House, a naturalization ceremony, a presidential pardon and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s diplomatic visit to Jerusalem as political props for the Trump campaign — all in clear violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Hatch Act, which was meant to keep executive branch functions pure from the taint of partisan gamesmanship.
In a bit of unintentional candor, the RNC actually reflected accurately the approach, tone and tone-deafness of the Trump administration over the past three-and-half years. Stacks of lies presented as fact. Utter disdain for ethical standards, laws and historic precedent. Brazen misuse of presidential power for personal gain.
The feel of the spectacle was more coronation than convention as a procession of Trump family members were presented as American royalty. The final night was capped by an opera singer serenading about 1,500 mostly unmasked, tightly bunched guests from the White House balcony as a sacred, nonpartisan American symbol, the Washington Monument, was coopted for a glitzy partisan fireworks display.
The question for American voters over the next 65 days is whether they will choose to live in the real world or the one manufactured by the president and his enablers.
There were widely praised moments in the convention, including first lady Melania Trump’s empathetic speech, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s address and heartfelt testimonials from several regular Trump supporters. The footage of Alice Johnson’s reunion with her family, after serving about 22 years of a life sentence for cocaine trafficking that was commuted by the president, was inspiring.
The Trump campaign’s goal was to satisfy the base with red-meat rhetoric while beckoning back those true conservatives who have been rendered politically homeless by Trump’s rise.
This group of disenchanted voters, who abandoned the party in 2018 and have been further alienated by the administration’s feckless response to the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, includes white women and other rural and suburban residents who express a distaste for the president’s crude and cruel antics even if they embrace many of his policies, including tax cuts, school choice, deregulation, limited abortion access and the protectionist notion of “putting America first” in trade deals.
The challenge was to relieve such voters of guilt they might feel for supporting a man who has been credibly labeled racist, misogynist and xenophobic.
Whether the effort was successful will be determined, but the attempt revealed some telling conflicts with reality. The number of female, Black and Latino speakers who produced compelling personal testimonies for Trump were far out of proportion to their representation in the GOP, its agenda, or in Trump’s Cabinet.
His fawning over new citizens at a televised naturalization ceremony stood in stark contrast with the president’s rhetoric and attempts to limit not only illegal immigration, but legal immigration and work visas as well.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany used a personal health crisis story to claim that the president “stands by Americans with preexisting conditions.” All the while, the administration tries to undo the Affordable Care Act, a move that could disqualify as many as 54 million Americans with preexisting conditions from getting health insurance.
The biggest disconnect involved the pandemic. The deadly new coronavirus was either ignored or his fumbled response portrayed as a major victory.
“We are delivering life-saving therapies and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner,” Trump said Thursday night, a guarantee that medical experts say shouldn’t be rushed.
Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, claimed that Trump had led an “extraordinary rescue” to “successfully fight the COVID virus,” noting that “stocks are in record territory” and the economy is poised for a “V-shaped recovery.”
More than 3,300 people died of COVID-19 over the four-day Republican convention, bringing the nation’s death total to more than 180,000. About 28 million people were receiving unemployment on Aug. 1, absent expired $600 payments. Up to 40 million people are facing eviction notices.
This is the real world.
Yet, in Trump’s world, the menace is wild-eyed socialists who seek to destroy, as he put it, every great thing America has achieved in the 244 years since Independence. He closed his convention with a stark warning: “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
Four years ago, Trump accepted his party’s nomination with the same dark imagery: “Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation,” Trump said on July 21, 2016. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Beginning on Jan. 20, 2017, safety will be restored. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens.”
He concluded with a startling pledge — even for Trump: “I alone can fix it.”
In November, American voters will render a verdict. Did Trump fix what was arguably broken — or make the weak spots weaker? Are Americans better off, living the fantasy the president describes — or praying to wake up from a bad dream?
After last week’s convention, reality is on the ballot.