There hasn't been a spectacle of such unbridled hatred, fear and bigotry since the Nuremberg Rallies. It has been absolutely grotesque.
Whatever the intent of the convention was has been lost from the very beginning. There were supposed to be nightly themes. You couldn’t tell that by the very limited and repetitious topics the speakers have been presenting. It has been called a dumpster fire, which may be a disservice to dumpsters fires. Melania’s plagiarism, Christie’s mock trial and now Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorse Trump have dominated the news cycle. It has been an unmitigated disaster.
Now three days into this 'political' convention there has not been one speaker who has put forth any coherent policy.
What there has been a litany of all the U.S. institutions the ultra right-wing, obstructionist, seditious and treasonous republican party wants to pull down. They want to get rid of government interference in their lives. They want to get rid of the IRS. They want to build a wall. They want to make sure the freedoms to the LBGT community get rolled back. They want to make sure all the brown people are accounted for or denied entrance into the country. They want to get rid of Healthcare and any programs that benefit the American people, because.. uh.. freedom. They keep saying freedom while talking how they will take the freedoms away of those they despise.
And they despise A LOT of people and things.
I know none of them are self aware enough to realize that if you hate America's institutions it just might be that, somehow, you have come to hate America.
Yeah, and 'the Constitution'. I've never heard the word be used so much by people who have obviously never read or understood it. But they are somehow the only ones who can uphold it and upholding it means creating a totally draconian America that would be in total violation of the Constitution.
They want to force their version of religion into our public school system. And they don't see this as 'big government' interfering in people's lives. The hell with the separation of Church and State that's in the Constitution they profess to love so much. That part of the Constitution they don't have to uphold, obviously.
They want to 'rebuild' a military whose budget is 697 billion dollars a year, more than the next 12 countries combined most which are our allies. and of course Hillary Clinton is responsible for the terrible state the largest, most obscenely funded and feared military in the world is in.
It has been a seemingly never-ending litany of their loathing of Hillary Clinton and blaming her for things she never had any control over and lying about her record every chance they can get.
The jackhammer repetition of this theme is mind and soul numbing.
It has been a public retrying of every republican led 'investigation' into every republican led 'scandal' that Hillary Clinton has been found NOT GUILTY in. Only this time they don't need truth, facts or the pretense of the law on their side, because they have an ANGRY MOB.
Gone is any pretense of having the moral high ground. There is no talk of 'family values', anymore. There is no 'Contract for America'. There is no coherent policy of any kind. Why? Because they don't need that anymore. They discovered a secret weapon.
All they need is hatred.
This is politics of the Id, in all it's shrieking, reptilian glory. Their greatest enemy is not from the middle-east, it's not Afghanistan, Iraq or Al-Queda nor is it North Korea, it isn't even ISIL. The group that they have reserved their seething animus for is something they call ‘liberals’. They make their hatred clear with every speech that is given. They scream and rail against them. They blame them for all the world's ills. They blame many people for the world's ills. The only people they don't blame? Themselves.
Nobody has come on stage and made the very true statement, 'Hey guys, we may disagree with them but liberals are Americans just like you and me, that care deeply about our country' and if they did, I pretty sure it would provoke the first lynching in the history of television.
It has been extremely painful to watch. I can't imagine hating that much. It must be exhausting and soul crushing to live with that much venom coursing through their bodies.
One of the lowest of low points came from Chris Christie's rather insane and strident mock trial of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy. Where he lied repeatedly led the mob in a chant asking over and over again, 'Is she guilty or not guilty?' to which the rabid crowd would scream 'Guilty!' and ‘Lock her up!’ It was like 'Monty Python's Holy Grail' Witch Trial scene without the humor and stuffed to the brim with acidic hatred.
Christie's disgustingly low minded performance was filled with lies. How can he do this you may ask? It's because he knows his audience doesn't want the truth. They want fuel for their hatred and they have long ago given up the bare minimum standard that their hatred be based in truth.
They have abandoned any guise of appealing to a more mainstream audience. They are playing to the most extreme of their electorate and to hell with anybody who doesn’t like it.
How has this happened? This is the first GOP Convention, in my lifetime, that is solely a creation of right-wing hate media. The fringe conspiracies and blatant disregard for the truth and even the pretense of fairness and rational thought, now rule the day.
This is what the elite in the republican party have wanted. This is why they had Ronald Reagan strike the Fairness Doctrine off the books. The Fairness Doctrine that set the minimum standard that the news be factually truthful, that editorial be diverse and that issues be presented in a fair and equal light. This is why they got rid of the 7-7-7 Rule that prevented media consolidation. This is how they created hate media and the Fox 'News' channel that can pump right-wing propaganda out into the world 24/7. What they have been striving for is One Nose for One Neck. Now they have it.
Go to Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine on Facebook for more info:
https://www.facebook.com/BringBackTheFairnessDoctrine/?fref=ts
This is far from the William F. Buckley led, at least trying to have the pretense of intelligence and civility, conservatives, whose primary concern was to aggrandize themselves, of my youth.
This is a very dangerous, violent, belligerent, unreasoning mob. And what we've seen during the convention is the Mob teetering on turning on itself. That is the inevitable fate of any group whose unifying principle is hatred.
If they should lose this election, which I hope everybody but extremists hope will happen, what will happen to all that hatred? I can't imagine it seething and being bottled up for another 4 or maybe 8 years. I am almost certain they will lash out in anyway they can, in anyway they can, in the only way they can, with blind unreasoning hatred, manifesting itself in violence.
The republican party is one step away from becoming a terrorist organization.