Four Nights of donnie's... Ugly Face

So now that we've endured the long week of a Democratic national convention - where we didn't see enough AOC or Julian Castro but watched a beautiful state-by-state roll call and witnessed Joe Biden use his best skill set (empathy) - we now have to endure the long week of the Republican party host their own convention to renominate trump and push their platform to a global audience.

It's not gonna be pretty (hat-tip to Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice):

Trump is micro-managing the shit out of the event because of course he is. He will go to his grave believing he’s a media genius because venal media types propped him up and wiped the racist drool off his chin so they could first sell a serially bankrupt fraud as a successful businessman on a reality TV show and then sell that same buffoon as a presidential candidate.

But the truth is, the network professionals aren’t running this shit-show, Trump is. And he scraped clean through the bottom of the barrel early in his administration, so the hires executing this event are decidedly of the lowest quality...

Betty then quotes from the NY Times:

Republicans involved in the planning admit that anxiety began to set in two weeks ago. But on Saturday, they said that they were now confident that a fully realized lineup was in place — and that in contrast to the Democrats’ virtual event, voters could expect something more akin to a regular convention, with a focus on live onstage moments featuring Mr. Trump, whom aides described as the week’s “talent in chief.”

Typically, the nominee makes a mundane appearance early in the convention — waving or watching from the wings — before a major speech at the end. Mr. Trump has dismissed that model and now plans to directly address the nation in prime-time on each of the convention’s four nights. The president wants the opportunity to rebut charges made against him throughout the Democratic program, aides said, particularly on his handling of the coronavirus crisis...

trump is basically hijacking the 10PM prime time pundit slots on the major cable networks - if not the regular networks (who I hope redecide to air Agents of SHIELD reruns instead) - to do his craven rally stump speeches for four straight nights.

This is unprecedented in the modern political convention era, if not ever. Most early - pre-Primary (1970s) - conventions didn't even have a confirmed nominee (even incumbents weren't safe back in the 1800s) until the final ballot of attendees, so nobody spoke all four nights. Once we got into the era where the nominee was set by March-June thanks to the state Primaries, it became custom for the convention week to promote up-and-coming fresh faces (like Bill Clinton in 1988 or Barack Obama in 2004) in the prime time slots to keep their future bright and shiny to motivate the party faithful.

Not this time. trump's ego is overriding party needs and he's going to be shilling himself four straight nights, both to keep his own energy up - like an emotion vampire, he thrives on the rage and sadism of his crowds - and to make sure the whole thing is about him him him.

Problem is, there's a good reason you want to keep your Presidential nominee to just one big night to give The Big Speech: You reduce the odds of your nominee laying a stinkbomb of an egg on national television. You'll notice the acceptance speeches of every candidate in the modern era is a rather boring, push-the-buttons, avoid-the-gaffes affair. And they only do it one night, hit-or-miss: But they've gotten the speech-making part down to a science, so it's usually a hit (even trump's ode to his own ego - "I alone can fix this" - hit all the right notes in an acceptance speech). trump is tempting fate here: he is multiplying the risks of a badly received speech by a factor of four.

And trump is threatening to use these four nights to rebut the Democratic party accusations of how trump has 1) mismanaged international affairs, 2) mismanaged the coronavirus response, 3) mismanaged the government, 4) mismanaged the economy. We are going to get a combination of gaslighting, lies, projection, and self-grievance on a scale rarely seen at an official party convention.

Going negative this early - and the odds of it happening have gone up now - on the national stage is a recipe for disaster. Yes, it will embolden the party base of Republican voters who are already wolfing down the rage and hate that trump's been selling them the last four years along with the rage and hate the GOP's been selling since 1992. But you run the serious risk of alienating the independent, still-on-the-fence voters who look for a broad sense of unity, national spirit, and call to empathy (and yes, these voters do exist). 

Reagan won big in 1980 (and even moreso in 1984) by making such broad appeals even when his actual agenda was more hardline conservative and harsh. It's why Biden and the Dems hosted this year's convention as a call to Big Tent unity with appeals to centrist Republicans (inviting John Kasich in an effective "Crossroads" presentation to bring those "Reagan Democrats" back) and lofty displays of families and teens calling for a better America.

trump's potential Four Nights of Airing Grievances is going to rub a lot of Americans the wrong way.

It's gonna look like the Rose Garden Melania just bulldozed into a grassy bikepath: flat and grey and MY GOD WHAT THE FCK DID THEY DO TO THE TREES.

The article title, by the by, is a reference to a Survival Horror game series called "Five Nights At Freddie's" which is mostly a set of jump scares you have to endure.

trump's Carnie show is going to be worse than that.

The best fcking move America can do is not watch this train wreck. Don't give trump and his cronies any viewing numbers to crow about. Look away. WALK AWAY. Run if you have to.

Just think of the Chernobyl supervisors who thought to themselves "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" Think of everything that can go wrong with a hasty, last-minute, what-the-hell-are-we-doing national spectacle micromanaged by the worst boss in modern history.

Just don't watch, people.