The GOP keeps trying to rewrite history as a quarter-million deaths lie ahead with a failed policy, as if any death toll could be spun positively.
3 takeaways from the first night of the Republican National Convention
1. A promise of optimism, quickly abandoned
Cuban American immigrant Maximo Alvarez, in an impassioned speech, suggested Democrats and possibly even Biden are secretly putting the country on a path to communism.
“I’m speaking to you today because I have seen people like this before. I’ve seen movements like these before,” Alvarez said, adding that things he heard from some Democrats “don’t sound radical to my ears; they sound familiar. Fidel Castro was asked if he was a communist. He said he was a Roman Catholic.”
Some of the headliners were less about the “doom and gloom,” notably former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott (R). Attacks are standard fare for conventions like this, but the thrust of the night was not as advertised.
2. A focus: Combating allegations of racism
One of the focal points — both in the choice of speakers and what some of them said — was the perception that Trump is a racist and that there is a racism problem in the GOP and the country.
Polls have shown half of Americans or more believe Trump is a racist. Trump has suggested that minority congresswomen should “go back” to their countries (despite most of them having been born here) and called a judge of Mexican descent biased against him, which then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) called “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” He also recently retweeted a video that included a supporter saying “White power,” later deleting it but declining to disavow it.
3. Rewriting history on the coronavirus
RNC tries to rewrite pandemic history, casting Trump as decisive leader. The narrative ignores missteps that let virus spread.
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