Here Comes Trump

Because the media want to be seen as fair and balanced, the rosy reviews they originally gave the Democratic convention have since been dramatically tempered by a lot of second-guessing.  I've counted as many as five or six commentators insisting that the Democrats did nothing to speak to the working-class Obama voters that defected to Trump in 2016, and not one pundit has seen fit to challenge that assessment.  Democrats now find themselves challenged about the apparent failure to present a clear agenda, and this third-degree treatment has been given to high-profile Democrats such as Pete Buttigieg and James Clyburn.  It's as if reporters and commentators at the TV news outlets, working for a Republican owner, are worrying about offending the boss and therefore are giving Donald Trump a springboard from which to leap forward and over Joe Biden.

Not really.  Trump (above) continues to lie and spread rumors and innuendo about the Democrats while providing misleading rhetoric about the issues of the day - especially COVID-19. And a lot of TV pundits, from Jake Tapper on CNN to Mark Shields and David Brooks on PBS and just about everyone on MSNBC, are calling him on them.  It is in that milieu in which the Republican convention starts tonight and in which Trump, after having seen Joe Biden speak softly and carry a big stick, threatens to speak loudly - every night of the convention, in fact! - and carry an even bigger stick, by which to beat Biden on the head with. After the Democrats' positive message of hope and light, Trump and the Republicans hope to bury their lofty rhetoric with angry defenses of God, the flag, guns, whitebread Middle American values, and all that other exclusionary claptrap commonly associated with the John Birch Society and the Tea Party.

Trump spent the week of the Democratic convention counterprogramming a message against Biden's, with some noticeable effect; like other obnoxious, minimally talented celebrities, he stays relevant buy getting people to pay attention to his outrageous schtick.  I wish I could say that Biden will be as effective in counterprogramming a message against Trump as Trump was in going against Biden, but I can't.  Democrats just don't have the ability to divert and distract from the Republicans' message in the same way that the Republicans - not just Trump, but Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes - have the ability to divert and distract from the Democrats' message.  But Mother Nature, God's bratty kid sister, could, in a brutal and nasty way, give the Democrats some help in creating a diversion.  Having set California on fire again, she is now sending two tropical cyclones to the Gulf Coast.  She recently blew a ferocious windstorm across Iowa and is threatening to send thunderstorms of similar severity and viciousness across the Northeast tomorrow.  (Alert: I might lose power again, and any posts will see may have been programmed to self-publish in advance.  In which case, expect more typos than usual! :-p)   If people talk about all that instead of Trump's empty-headed rhetoric, it will not only help Biden, it will highlight the necessity of addressing climate change.

And the day after convention ends, my area could get more severe thunderstorms.