One more set, just a few, then we’ll try to think of other things and hope that Trump and his minions will just magically disappear, as Trumps said, months ago, the virus would do over the summer. (It didn’t; he won’t.)<\/p>\n
New York Times, Frank Bruni: Is There Nothing Trump Won\u2019t Say?<\/a>. Subtitle: Shamelessness meets illogic in a memorable (and endless) speech.<\/p>\n \nHow to reconcile that with the vicious tone and vitriolic content of much of his remarks, which were as grounded in reality as a Tolkien novel and about as long? I\u2019m stumped.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m impressed: that he claimed such big-heartedness while showing such small-mindedness; that he twisted facts with such abandon and in such abundance; that he again trotted out that nonsense about having done more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln; that he disparaged Joe Biden for not \u201cfollowing the science\u201d about Covid-19 when he, Trump, mused about injections of bleach and vouched recklessly for hydroxychloroquine; that he characterized Biden\u2019s positions as a \u201cdeath sentence for the U.S. auto industry\u201d when the Obama administration helped to save American carmakers.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n He later taunted Democrats by gesturing at [The White House] and saying, \u201cWe\u2019re here and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t patriotism. It was puerility. He was rubbing his rebellion against tradition and presidential etiquette in his critics\u2019 faces.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\\\<\/p>\n The New Yorker: The Malign Fantasy of Donald Trump\u2019s Convention<\/a>. Subtitle: Using the White House as his prop, the President makes war on Joe Biden, and pretends the pandemic is all but defeated.<\/p>\n \nFor four years, Donald Trump has been asking us to believe the unbelievable, to accept the unthinkable, to replace harsh realities with simple fantasies. On Thursday night, using the White House as a gaudy backdrop, the President made his case to the American people for four more years. His speech capping the Republican National Convention was long, acerbic, untruthful, and surprisingly muted in comparison to the grandeur of the setting, which no chief executive before him has dared to appropriate in such a partisan way. \u201cWe will make America greater than ever before,\u201d he promised.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n The problem, of course, is that America as we know it is currently in the midst of a mess not of Biden\u2019s making but of Trump\u2019s. Suffice it to say that, by the time Trump\u2019s speech was over and the red, white, and blue fireworks spelling out \u201c2020\u201d had been set off over the National Mall, late Thursday night, more than three thousand seven hundred Americans had died of the coronavirus since the start of the Convention\u2014more than perished on 9\/11\u2014and a hundred and eighty thousand Americans total had succumbed to the disease, a disease that Trump repeatedly denied was even a threat. His botched handling of the pandemic was the very reason that his Convention was taking place on the White House lawn in the first place.<\/p>\n But the real message of the evening was that nothing, not even a deadly plague or a cratering economy, can stop Trump from being Trump. He bragged. He lied. He even ad-libbed a taunt at his critics, using the White House as his prop. \u201cWe\u2019re here,\u201d he said, pointing to the flood-lit mansion behind him, \u201cand they\u2019re not.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\\\<\/p>\n UK perspective: Guardian: Trump unleashes diatribe of falsehoods and baseless attacks in RNC finale<\/a>. Subtitle: Trump portrayed Biden as a creature of the Washington swamp, beat the drum of law and order and said little about racial injustice.<\/p>\n \nYet while Biden rose to the occasion last week, Trump proceeded to deliver a somewhat flat 70-minute diatribe full of lies and falsehoods, red meat for the base and little to persuade the wavering voter. He even fluffed his big line by saying \u201cprofoundly\u201d instead of \u201cproudly\u201d: \u201cMy fellow Americans, tonight with a heart full of gratitude and boundless optimism, I profoundly accept this nomination for president of the United States.\u201d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\\\<\/p>\n Vox, Ezra Klein: The 3 charts that disprove Donald Trump\u2019s convention speech<\/a>. Subtitle: Trump wants to take credit for something he didn\u2019t do, and dodge blame for something he did do.<\/p>\n Gist: 1) the economic recovery began under Obama, long before Trump came into office; 2) the US has –still– by far the highest rate of new Covid-19 cases per million people, compared to “peer developed nations”; 3) and far more deaths per capita.<\/p>\n \nIt is not Trump\u2019s fault that the coronavirus reached our shores. It is Trump\u2019s fault that we\u2019ve responded so fecklessly. There is no reason that, say Germany, should\u2019ve been so much more capable in its response. The difference was political leadership \u2014 a difference that was viscerally, visually on display during Trump\u2019s speech, which packed 1,500 people onto the white House lawn, with barely a face mask in sight.<\/p>\n The grim truth is that, even today, we still don\u2019t have a plan to control the coronavirus, save to hope for a vaccine. Vice President Mike Pence admitted as much on Wednesday. \u201cLast week, Joe Biden said \u2018no miracle is coming,\u2019 What Joe doesn\u2019t seem to understand is that America is a nation of miracles and we\u2019re on track to have the world\u2019s first safe, effective coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year.\u201d So that\u2019s the plan, then. A miracle. And how many Americans will die between now and then? How many will die if we don\u2019t have an effective vaccine, produced and delivered at scale, by the end of the year?<\/p>\n So this is the core of Trump\u2019s reelection message: You should give him credit for the economic recovery he inherited from Obama. And you should blame someone else for the disastrous response to the coronavirus. Inspiring stuff.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One more set, just a few, then we’ll try to think of other things and hope that Trump and his minions will just magically disappear, as Trumps said, months ago, the virus would do over the summer. (It didn’t; he … Continue reading