The Republican national convention is the Trump show, and all the Trumps are being rolled out, even the black sheep, Tiffany. Most of the family members are there in merely supporting roles for the pater familias, although Don Jr might fancy a political career in the wake of daddy’s second – or third – term. After all, he is the most closely connected to the Trump base, having peddled racist conspiracy theories since at least 2016 – remember the Skittles tweet?
Speaking of sideshows, there were also, of course, the heroes of rightwing “cancel culture” panic, such as the Covington Catholic kid and the St Louis Bonnie and Clyde. The evil cartoon characters from St Louis warned suburban America that “no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America”, while the Covington kid is here to personify the attack on “free speech” by the identity politics of the radical left.
In many ways, this convention is a call-back to the old Republican party of dog-whistle politics. The intended audience knows who they won’t be safe from – Black people – and knows that no one is so powerless as a white man. But they don’t explicitly mention race, as their audience still feels a bit awkward when the racism is too overt.
Similarly, the non-white sideshow is there to tell this dog-whistle audience that, to quote Nikki Haley, “America is not a racist country.” Even liberals got swayed by the South Carolina Republican Tim Scott’s “body blows” to Biden. As he portrayed himself as the product of “the promise of the American journey”, older moderate Republicans could probably hear the tunes of Reagan’s “Morning in America” in their minds.
But these were just intermezzos in an onslaught of aggressive, relentless and unapologetic attacks on the so-called radical left provided by the Trump family and the host of people making their highly profitable careers through them – including the hope for the Trumpian future, Charlie Kirk.
Many people have noted the absence of establishment Republicans. Sure, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, will both speak, but they are exceptions, and sideshows to the Trump show. In fact, in a whole new twist to “No Platform”, the Republican national committee proudly announced it would have no new platform for the 2020 elections.
The Washington Post claimed that this means that “the Republican party stands for nothing”. But this is obviously wrong. Trump is the platform! And by now, even the Post should know what Trump stands for: authoritarianism, corruption, egocentrism, nativism and populism. As I’ve argued before, US democracy is not dying in darkness. It is dying in plain sight … if it is dying at all, but that is up to the American people and its vote.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
