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| Kimberly Guilfoyle pastemagazine.com |
Hello Everyone:
The ringing in The Candidate Forum's ears finally stopped after yesterday evening's deafening speech from top Trump fundraiser Kimberly Guilfoyle. Apparently, Ms. Guilfoyle was oblivious to the fact she was speaking to an empty room. Deafening speech aside, The Candidate Forum is here with Night One's highlights from the 2020 Republican National Convention. Before we get started, Have your registered to vote?
If you did register to vote, good for you. Before you fill out your ballot, make a plan, Text VOTE to 30330. If you plan to mail in your completed secure ballot, please make absolute sure you postmark it by midnight, October 15th, to allow the Post Office enough time to process and deliver it to its final destination. If you can safely vote in person, pack your provisions (food, beverage, phone charger), get in line, and STAY IN LINE. Even if you are in line after your polling place has officially closed, you cannot be denied your right to vote if you remain in line. Thank you.
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| RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel wilx.com |
The Republican National Committee promised that their convention would be significantly more optimistic than Democrats' last week. That, for the most part, got tossed out the window.
RNC Chairperson Ronna McDaniel said over the weekend,
The big contrast you'll see between the Democrats' doom-and-gloom, Donald Trump-obsessed convention will be a convention focused on real people, their stories, how the policies of the Trump administration lifted their lives, and then an aspirational vision toward the next four years... (washingtonpost.com; Aug. 25, 2020).
Ms. McDaniel, kicked off Night One by telling the viewers,
...'nice' guys like Joe [Biden] care more about countries like Iran and China than the United States (Ibid)
An anonymous medical professional warned that the Democrats' proposal for Medicare for All would mean,
...we'd be lucky if we could see any doctor... (Ibid)
For the record, VPOTUS Joe Biden does not support single-payer health care.
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| Ms. Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr. latimes.com |
Former Fox News presenter and partner of Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle offered her own version of doom-and-gloom, shouting that the Democrats
...want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom (Ibid)
Donald Trump Jr., the incumbent president's eldest son, offered his own bleak take, at a lower volume,
Biden also wants to bring in more illegal immigrants to take jobs from American citizens...
No, this is not VPOTUS Biden's goal. He added that the Democrats are
...attacking the very principles on which our nation was founded: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the rule of law... (Ibid)
The younger Mr. Trump inserted aspirational messages in between dire warnings of what the Democrats would do. As if to underscore the point, Cuban American immigrant Maximo Alvarez was brought in to speak about life under communism, suggesting that VPOTUS Biden and the Democrats were secretly plotting a path in that direction. He passionately told the viewers,
...I'm speaking to you today because I have seen people like this before. I've seen movement like these before,....[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 (Ibid)
Accusations of pending communism/socialism/whatever-ism are standard fare for political conventions. Not all of the featured speakers were about doom-and-gloom. Two the evening's headliners, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and fellow South Carolinian Tim Scott (R) were featured to combat allegations of racism.
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| South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott cnn.com |
In an effort to counter the perceptions that the incumbent president is a racist and racism was a systemic problem within the RNC and the country, the convention organizers brought in speakers present an alternative truth. The sharpest comments were delivered by former football running back Herschel Walker, an African America, who shared about his decades-long close relationship with the president.
It hurts my soul to hear the terrible names that people called Donald Trump: The worst one is 'racist',... I take it as a personal insult that people would think I've had a 37-year friendship with a racist. People who think that don't know what they're talking about. Growing up in the Deep South, I've seen racism up close. I know what it is. And it isn't Donald Trump (Ibid).
Mr. Walker was joined on stage by other pro-Trump African Americans including Senator Scott and Georgia State Representative Democrat Vernon Jones, who provocatively argued that it was the Democrats who were harming African Americans:
The Democratic Party does want Black people to leave. We've been forced to be there for decades and generations (Ibid)
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| Former U.N ambassador Nikki Haley cnn.com |
As Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley made headlines for ordering the Confederate battle flag taken down in the aftermath of a 2015 mass shooting at Mother Immanuel Church in Charleston. In perhaps, the least self-aware speech of the evening if not ever, Ms. Haley, the first Indian American female governor, cut a larger swath across the issue by denouncing the very idea of systemic racism. Ms. Haley told the viewers,
Here is one more important area were our president is right: He knows that political correctness and cancel culture are dangerous and just plain wrong,... In much of the Democratic Party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country (Ibid)
The Candidate Forum supposes that all the South Asian Muslims and openly devout Sikhs who have been targeted by racists and bigots would agree with you? In one of the most gag reflex inducing moments, Ms. Haley spoke of the ...evolution of the Southern heart (Ibid), implying that it helped her former boss win the 2016 election.
Allow The Candidate Forum to enlighten Ms. Haley. Today's The Washington Post reports, "Polls have shown half of Americans or more believe Trump is a racist." The president has suggested that minority congresswomen should "go back" to their countries. Never mind the fact that most of them were born in the United States. Her former boss also suggested that a federal judge of Mexican ancestry is biased against, which former Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R-Wis) called "the textbook definition of a racist comment." Did Ms. Haley conveniently forget the recent tweets and comments questioning Senator Kamala Harris' eligibility to serve as vice president because her parents were immigrants? Or how about retweeting a video that included a supporter say "White power," later deleting and disavowing it? Just thought Ms. Haley would like a reminder.
Delegates at the RNC convention |
Finally, the incumbent president hopes to use the convention to rewrite his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. His approval rating on the pandemic are in the near-basement level low to mid-thirties as the death toll inches its way to 200,000 people, the upper bound of what Trump himself would constitute a successful response.
The convention began its prime time broadcast, by focusing on the unavoidable topic--and in a very big way try to rewrite history. The convention opened with a video supercut of Democrats and others downplaying the severity of the pandemic. An ominously voiced narrator intoned,
From the very beginning, Democrats, the media and the World Health Organization got the coronavirus wrong,... The World Health Organization said authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission (washingtonpost.com; Aug. 25, 2020).
The narrator compared the supercut with the incumbent president: One leader took decisive action to save lives (Ibid).
Taken at face value, comments by Democrats and the World Health Organization coincided with the very precise thing the incumbent president was doing, albeit more forcefully and it would take a considerable more time before he would stop doing so. Comments from the WHO about no evidence of human-to-human transmission were from Jan. 14, and it allowed for the possibility that evidence would of such transmission would emerge, as soon as it was discovered. Some of the comments in the video were made in January and February, before anyone fully understood how extremely contagious the virus is. Juxtapose this with the fact the incumbent president continued to downplay COVID-19 even declaring on March 15th that it's something that we have tremendous control over (washingtonpost.com; Aug. 25, 2020).
Republicans point to the incumbent president's travel restrictions from China as proof that he is taking the correct course of action.
Looking ahead to this evening's events: First Lady Melania Trump is set to deliver the keynote from the controversially renovated White House Rose Garden. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will make history as the first person to address a convention from a foreign country. Secretary Pompeo is in Israel and will address the viewers from an undisclosed rooftop. Wednesday, incumbent VPOTUS Mike Pence will deliver his remarks from Fort McHenry, where the National Anthem was written in Baltimore, Maryland. Thursday, the incumbent president will deliver his acceptance speech from the South Lawn of the White House. The Candidate Forum will be here for you.
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