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It has been three weeks since we've done this, since for the past two Fridays we were still writing up our notes on the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Now that all that hoopla is over, we can return once again to our usual Friday Talking Points format.
This year's presidential campaign, like just about every other aspect of American life during the coronavirus pandemic, is going to be different than any we've seen before. How different is still an open question, because nobody really knows where the country will be in a month or two. Perhaps the pandemic will significantly abate. Conversely, it could get far worse with the advent of the yearly flu season. Either one would affect how the two candidates campaign. But there is one thing that appears pretty obvious at this point -- the first presidential debate is going to be absolutely critical.
Is it over yet?
No, really, this has to be it... it's gotta be over now... right?
Not unlike experiencing the end of The Lord Of The Rings for the first time, last night I watched President Donald Trump give the longest convention acceptance speech in modern history (with the only possible other contender being Trump's 2016 speech) while continually wondering (from about ten past the hour onwards) when he would begin to wrap it up. Several times I was convinced he had done so... but then he just kept on talking. I mean, Frodo's safely back in the Shire, so it's got to be the end, right?
Last night, while watching the continuing study in contradiction that is the Republican National Convention, I had to wonder at several points who, exactly, is president right now? After all, the campaign for Donald Trump seems to be operating from the point of view that if only Trump were president then he could solve America's massive current problems. On subject after subject, we were told that things out there are really, really scary and that the only response to this dystopian world was to elect a savior who would deliver us from all the frightfulness.
When reading other reviews of the Republican National Convention today, many seemed to me to be making the mistake of proclaiming: "Trump is preaching to the choir, he's only interested in firing up his base." There is indeed a lot of this sort of thing, but there is also a sustained effort at pandering to distinct voter demographics where Trump is either performing weakly or worse. The two efforts -- fire up the base and reach out to possible "persuadable" voters -- set up another disjointed disconnect of epic proportions, to be sure, but as Trump says, it is what it is.
Republicans promised they'd put on an uplifting convention. To say they failed to reach this goal on their first night is a vast understatement. What we got instead was fear, on steroids.
Granted, their job was a tough one from the get-go. During the Democratic convention, there was a mix of (as Joe Biden framed it) the light and the dark. But the Democrats' message was pretty clear: we're in a dark period right now, and we can move towards the light with the repudiation of Donald Trump and all his enablers. The Republican message was the opposite, which is a pretty hard case to make, considering the current state of affairs. According to the Republicans, everything is just peachy right now, but if Biden wins, things will become apocalyptically bad overnight. There's just one problem with this formulation, however, and that is that we are hardly experiencing Utopia right now, as the COVID-19 deaths climb towards 180,000, unemployment is still in double digits -- higher than at any point during the Great Recession -- and the economy looks like it is now stalling due to the Republicans refusing to pass another pandemic stimulus bill. In other words, the American public is fully capable of looking around at their own lives and seeing that Utopia is far from what they're experiencing right now.
Today's one of those days when I had a subject already in mind for a column, but then read a few other columns that essentially already said what I was going to say (and in at least one case, said it much better than I could have). Fortunately, a second subject also popped up while reading the news today. So what I'm going to do is provide a few longish excerpts from the articles I read on the first subject at the end of this column, as a sort of "imagine the column Chris would have written" mental exercise (I even had a theme song in mind...), complete with the links to the original articles.
Instead, I'm going to write about weed. Weed voters, in particular. Now, any longtime reader of this column knows that I've been banging this particular drum for a very long time -- in particular, the fact that marijuana legalization is a political issue ripe for support from one of the major political parties. Sadly, both parties continue to shy away from it, although the Democrats have done a lot more "evolving" on the issue than most Republicans. Some Democrats, I should say, because not everyone's on board yet. I didn't notice this at the time, but here's a rundown of what happened to the party's official platform document this time around:
From the wisecracking Julia Louis-Dreyfus to Joe Biden's resounding speech, the last night of the Democratic National Convention was a solid hit, with only one sour spot (but we'll get to Mike Bloomberg in a moment...). National nominating conventions are traditionally supposed to build in pitch and intensity all week long to the "big finish" on the final day. Democrats certainly succeeded in this regard last night, topped off by perhaps the best speech Joe Biden has ever given. All around, the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention was a solid winner.
Before I begin, a personal note is necessary. I am somewhat distracted today so this may be a shorter and more disjointed column than the last two. I say this because somewhere between one-third and one-half of the county I live in is currently on fire. Ashes are raining down outside my window, and while I am not personally at risk yet, plenty of others I know are -- they've been evacuated and have no way of knowing if their homes have already burnt to the ground or not. Perhaps such an apocalyptic setting is fitting, as I watch and write about the most important election of my lifetime, who knows?
That "most important election" line is often used -- I've heard it for almost every election I've ever participated in, in fact. But this time the current magnitude of importance actually does live up to the dire billing. This is indeed the most important election for American democracy that I think I've ever seen. Donald Trump is not like any other Republican presidential candidate anyone has ever seen. Back in the 1980s, the election of Ronald Reagan gave rise to very real fears that World War III would soon be right around the corner. These fears were not unjustified (given his anti-communist history), and a bigger existential threat to the country is impossible to imagine. But the fears ultimately proved to be groundless. With Trump, however, the enemy is not without but within. Trump has destroyed so many of the norms of American politics that facing four more years of his misrule would put the future of the American experiment in democracy in real danger.
The second night of the Democratic National Convention had an unexpected surprise, because the part that is usually the most boring to watch turned out to be the most interesting adaptation of the new technological mode we've all been forced into. Or, more simply: the roll call was phenomenal!