[Daily Kos will be covering the Republican convention tonight from 8 PM to 11 PM ET.]
Having survived the first night of the Republican National Convention, we and Donald Trump both prepare ourselves for the second. We pivot from last night's festival of blood and gore to a hopefully less Draculian topic: labor and the economy. (Then again, this is Donald Trump we are talking about—for all we know the night will be devoted to stories of brave American business leaders walling up labor leaders in abandoned coke ovens.) The theme for the evening is Make America Work Again, but we shall choose a more apt title: the Airing of Still More Grievances.
Today the convention delegates officially nominated Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for president, marking the equally official end of the Republican Party. The mood as we start these primetime hours is appropriately funereal, presuming we’re talking about a funeral in which everyone is wearing oversized novelty hats and are very obviously drunk.
That's the good news. The bad news is that we seem to have used up all the Republican star power yesterday with Scott Baio and the ex-General Hospital guy. We'll be starting out tonight in speaker wasteland; it only gets better (if you can call it better) when we kick off the ritual presentation of the severed heads of Donald Trump’s primary foes—sorry, I mean that tonight is the night we'll start seeing "endorsement" speeches from a few of the folks Trump trounced to get to this point. Tonight’s featured speakers:
• Dana White, President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. As the evening kicks off we’re not quite fully detached from yesterday's blood sport; our program helpfully tells us that Donald Trump was willing to hold White’s "once-controversial mixed martial arts competitions" on his properties when nobody else would. White, one presumes, will be held up as an example of the sort of small businessman who will be amply rewarded under a Donald Trump presidency; cage fighting, man-versus-lion, and all manner of other ancient and manly sports will be making a comeback as America turns to its new focus on pitting commoners against each other for the amusement of the ultra-rich. And we'll be making sure none of those damn commoners have Obamacare, either. Sew your own intestines back up, gladiator, or step aside for someone who will.
• Asa Hutchison, governor of Arkansas. Nope, nobody knows why. Presumably somebody lost a bet.
• Sen. Ron Johnson. He is here not in his official Senate capacity, but as the founder of "a polyester and plastics manufacturing business, PACUR, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin." Which is good, because even Republicans aren’t keen on talking about what he’s been doing since.
• The NRA's Chris Cox. The NRA is required by Republican Common Law to have a speaking spot at every Republican convention. You may ask yourself what the NRA has to do with creating jobs; the answer is not a damn thing, but the Republican Party has so few economic ideas that they had to start padding things out after the first few speeches. It's that dire. He'll be talking about how Obama is still coming to take all your guns. Any minute now. Just you wait.
• Now, finally, it's time for the big sports stars we were promised. Natalie Gulbis is an LPGA golfer and "earned second place in Rookie of the Year points" in 2002. She's here because she also had a reality show—on the Golf Channel—thus fulfilling the Trump requirement that every night feature fellow reality show stars. In a Trump presidency she’ll probably become Secretary of Agriculture or something.
• Sports are done. You had your sports star, losers, now it’s on to the meat of the program: The ritual humiliation of the Republican Party. In quick succession, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will all take one last whiskey swig to wash away their remaining dignity and speak to America about how no, really, Republicans should all be very happy that Donald Trump is taking over their party and turning it into a dystopian hellscape. This is why John Boehner drank so much, Mr. Ryan. Now you know.
• And speaking of ritual humiliation, here comes part-time New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Christie, reportedly still bitter over being passed over for the vice presidential slot even after months of groveling at Trump's feet, is likely to reprise his 2012 role as the All About Me guy. Will he mention Trump? Will he pepper his speech with obscene gestures? We must wait and see.
• That over, it's time to give the people the other thing they really came for: More Trump. Or, if that can’t be done, we’ll go with Trump-by-proxy: Tiffany Trump is described as the "second-youngest of Donald Trump's children" with an "influential presence on social media." Subsequent speaker Kerry Wollard is the general manager of Trump Winery, because fuck you—Donald Trump wants the person who runs his winery to speak at the convention. Donald Trump. Jr. is either the Uday or the Qusay of the Trump boys, it’s tough to remember which, and shares his father's passionsfor belligerent self-aggrandizement and posting inappropriate things on Twitter.
• After some remarks from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, we're almost done. Dr. Ben Carson will be brought in to gently lull the delegates to sleep after their long day of hating people and demanding the opposing presidential candidate be jailed. He will once again tell the Ben Carson story, and it had better damn well still be in primetime—looking at you, Chris Christie—or his entire trip will have been for nothing. After a brief stint as a presidential candidate with a penchant for going off the rails in interviews, Carson has settled in to a cushy side gig of being the Trump surrogate who reliably goes off the rails in interviews; tonight is his promised reward.
Oh, and anyone who survives Ben Carson's full speech will then get to hear from Kimberlin Brown, another soap opera star. And here you thought Trump had already squeezed the Hollywood lemon dry.