Tuesday was “Make America Work Again” day at the Republican National Convention, which also happened to coincide with the party formally nominating Donald Trump as its nominee.
But neither jobs nor Trump got much attention as a grab bag of Republican headliners Tuesday spent most of their time demonizing Hillary Clinton and talking about themselves without offering an affirmative case for the nominee or a concrete economic policy agenda.
The keynoter, House Speaker Paul Ryan, spoke nearly 1,500 words but mentioned Trump’s name just twice. Promising he’d be standing alongside “Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump” at next year’s State of the Union address, Ryan spent the lion’s share of his time castigating the Democratic Party instead.
He told attendees that “only with Mike Pence and Donald Trump do we have a chance for a better way.” The “better way” was not specified.
“Watch the Democratic Party convention next week, that four-day infomercial of politically correct moralizing,” Ryan said instead, encouraging a divided Republican Party to head to the polls. “And let it be a reminder of all that is at stake in this election.”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson similarly appeared under a giant screen proclaiming the day’s slogan:
zaid jilani
But he offered no economic policies. Instead, he immediately launched into a speech about perceived flaws in Hillary Clinton’s testimony about the Benghazi tragedy, and then pivoted to rhetoric about “Islamic terrorists.” He castigated his own opponent, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, for opposing the USA Patriot Act and voting “against authorizing our military 11 separate times” — a message that clashes with Trump’s own scorn for the Iraq and Libya wars.
Trump’s name was mentioned just once in Johnson’s speech: “Donald Trump and Mike Pence … they’ll be strong leaders, working with Republicans in the House and Senate to achieve a goal that will unite us all: a safe and prosperous and secure America.” He offered no explanation of how Trump would be qualified to do any of this.
Johnson was followed by Chris Cox, the head of the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm. Cox’s address never mentioned jobs at all — not even for the gun industry.
“Voting for Hillary Clinton, or not voting, is not an option!” Cox bellowed, possibly aiming his remarks at conservatives who are wary of voting for Trump, whose views on gun rights are constantly shifting. As for Trump’s qualifications, Cox had nothing to say.
A handful of non-politicians spoke about Trump as a person, including two of his children, the manager of the Trump winery, and the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
So glad I don’t watch choreographed fights now.
The Republicans don’t want an America with jobs available, because the fear of being bullied and never getting a job is one of their main levers of social control. That dates all the way back to the beginning of the anti-Trump protesters where the demagogue was triumphantly shouting “good luck finding a job with that arrest on your record”. Yeah sure, he promises SOOO many jobs that anybody with a Bad Mark for shouting something at a political rally might as well put the pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger right now! No, this is the intent, the absolute intent, not merely to increase unemployment but to worsen the conditions of wage slavery across the board. They won’t settle for employees who work hard and go home – they want them always on call, always ready to volunteer for the greater glory of the company, always so very afraid to post or say anything that might be taken as anything but what the Massa wants him to say, always working carefully on their Social Profiles and trying to leverage their friends and cash them in for Social Credit so that maybe they might not have to put the gun in their mouth and pull the trigger this year.
But there’s an answer to all this: crime, war, terrorism. As we speak the future Zeta Emperor is growing every day, ready to take what was the presidency in Washington that is the birthright of the leader of one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world. No, it is not a good thing coming, not at all, but it is not so hypocritical, and it is coming, and it is God’s will.
“Make America Work Again” probably goes over really well with the large African-American community in Cleveland, who remember back when America used to make black people work.
When evaluating a politician running for office, one can always look to their voting record and the public service work they’ve done in the past. This always gives a pretty good indicator as to what they believe in and are willing to fight for or to go-along with.
With someone like Trump, he has no history of actual public service as an elected official, so people have to look to his public statements or personal history to try and draw some inferences.
The best ways of trying to draw inferences and conclusions is to find instances that aren’t political rhetoric.
The other day, Photosymbiosis said, “To see what politicians will really do, we need to examine their sources of money, not what they say or what they put in their campaign platforms. It’s the contents of the sausage that matter, not the sound of the sizzle. ”
I totally agree with this statement. But we can draw inferences on what they say IF they are not running for office. This, at least, gives some indication of their beliefs.
Attached are a couple of items I’ve found. One is Trumps political contributions over the years. There’s a great graph. Seems that he gave more to Democrats until 2010.
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/28/426888268/donald-trumps-flipping-political-donations
The other is a 1990 Playboy magazine interview.
playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990
You couldn’t make this shit up unless you were writing an outline for a center ring show at Ringling Bros. And even they would roll their eyes..and say..”next”.
At this point, if Murika isn’t rolling on the floor in gut splitting laughter.. it deserves this scum sucking clown.
Neither the DNC nor the RNC have a coherent program for the United States, not on jobs, not on education, not on health care, not on education, not on foreign policy – their platforms are BS and lies and their campaign strategies are based on trying to out-demonize the other side because neither has anything real to offer, other than continuation of the increasing wealth inequality trend.
What the country obviously needs is an FDR-style New Deal, a massive infrastructure project and jobs program, and the only political group with such a program is the Green Party, and the only reason it has a chance of working is because of their plan to greatly reduce the U.S. foreign military budget.
That’s where the Democratic plan hits a wall; Hillary Clinton is bent on foreign militarism, continuing Obama’s $1 trillion nuclear weapons plan, trying to restart the Cold War with China and Russia for the benefit of her military-industrial sponsors, running a Reagan-style coup-and-regime-change program all over the world – and the Republicans are merely keeping quiet about their foreign policy agenda, all with the active support and cooperation of the media, from NPR (a loyal servant of ‘free trade’ and foreign militarism) to FOX News.
In fact, it’s the corporate media that deserves the most condemnation, for refusing to ask the basic questions like, “What’s your policy on Afghanistan, now that Obama has upped troop levels and passed it on to the next administration? We’ve been in Afghanistan longer than we were in Vietnam, what do you think about that?”
Not as much fun as the sarah palin show.
I hope they haul her out before its over….
The RNC’s slogan of “Make America work again” needs to be further clarified so we can understand their mission is to “Make Americans work again at $7,25 an hour or less, part time, and without benefits”.
Perhaps a 3/5ths compromise is in order?
Below livable wage income citizens while being guaranteed full voting rights and fair representation of their states allotment (no gerrymandered districts) would only be counted as 3/5ths a real person by the census in determining how many U.S. House Reps their state has.
http://livingwage.mit.edu/
Here are some interesting comments from the pen of Mike Pence:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2016/07/mike-pences-past_15.html
His past views and Congressional voting record on many key issues put him well into the far right side of the political spectrum.
Most Confusing Headline Ever!
Whaaht?
Yes, nothing more than a coterie of people eager to rant and rave at Hillary, Obama, liberals, etc, etc. This GOP convention is devolving into a barking contest to harp on the so called faults and failures of the current government, with not a single honest or real idea of how things could or should be improved. Shame on their hypocrisy. I’m enjoying the little glorifications of Trump, or lacks thereof, which are at least coming from a half-way sincerity of opinion, though this Trump’s beauty is only in the eyes of his beholden ;-)
“…the so called faults and failures of the current government…”
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Had you left out “so called” you’d be correct in your observation.
The faults and failures of the Obama administration are many. Unfortunately the mainstream press [including The Intercept_] has not been very keen on pointing them out.
TI is SocPup, Ody Division
A total bankruptcy of ideas.