US election 2020: Could the Democrats be any more dreary?
So this is what the Democrats’ virtual convention is like: boring, scolding, and woke, and offering Donald Trump the perfect opportunity to once again paint a positive picture of America, writes Miranda Devine.
Opinion
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The virtual Democratic National Convention kicked off this week with all the excitement of a funeral directors’ Zoom meeting. It only highlighted that Joe Biden’s small target, hiding-in-the-basement strategy has reached the limits of viability.
Biden will not make a virtual appearance until Thursday night and was tangential to Day One’s lugubrious snooze-fest, whose animating feature was Trump hatred.
The two-hour political infomercial, hosted in funereal tones by Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria, was live-streamed and aired on TV Monday night.
Trapped in a months-old time warp, when the virus was rampant and George Floyd had just been killed, the show was heavy on complaints about “systemic racism”, and loathing for the evildoer Trump, “the most destructive, hateful, racist president in the story of this country”.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who oversaw America’s largest (32,000) coronavirus death toll, and whose policy of sending COVID-positive patients into nursing homes led to the death of at least 11,000 residents, had the hide to blame Trump for “negligence” over the crisis.
Socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was granted a plum speaking role in a bid to stop his young fans, the Bernie Bros, rioting over the fact he was again dudded out of the nomination.
His far-left policies, now adopted by Biden in a joint manifesto, he boasted “just a few years ago were considered radical, [but] are now mainstream”.
A video was played of Biden perched on a stool speaking to racial justice activists on disembodied screens.
Another video lauded Biden for his common touch because he used to talk to Amtrak workers when he caught the train home from Washington, DC.
Michelle Obama was the star brought in to fire up the Democrat base. But she adopted the same dismal tone: “If you think things cannot possibly get worse, they can, and they will.”
She mentioned that the job of president requires “clear-headed judgment”, an unfortunate phrase in the context of 77-year-old Biden’s recognised cognitive decline.
She also repeated her famous line, “when they go low, we go high”, but it didn’t quite have the same resonance now everyone knows her husband’s administration weaponised the CIA and FBI to spy on Trump’s campaign, and destroy his presidency. That’s low. Barack Obama also cultivated the Marxist anti-cop Black Lives Matter organisation during his presidency, even after five police officers were killed in Dallas in 2016 during a BLM protest.
This is the same BLM which helped Antifa thugs burn, loot and terrorise American cities during the “mostly peaceful protests” that have raged all summer.
What started as legitimate protests in May over the death of Floyd, a black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police, has since morphed into a violent revolutionary movement with an implicit threat to Trump voters.
The theme of the virtual convention was “unity”, which is ironic considering the Democrats’ obsession with divisive identity politics, the fact they demonise the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump as racists or even white supremacists, and that their violent proxies are wreaking havoc across the country.
Thus, November’s election comes into focus as a contest between positive and negative visions of America.
Democrats offer a fearful, depressed, angry take on what they see as an irredeemably flawed America riddled with virus and riven with systemic racism.
Republicans offer optimism for a resilient, dynamic nation forging ahead with a V-shaped economic recovery, record jobs growth and retail spending, a month’s decline in daily COVID-19 cases, with vaccines and therapeutics on the horizon.
This upbeat outlook is dictated by a freewheeling Trump promising to rebuild what has been lost during the pandemic.
He spent Monday trying to upstage Biden by jetting to three mini rallies in Minnesota and Wisconsin, outdoors and socially distanced at airports, but with a hint of his old shows. Small crowds chanted “Four More Years” and “We Love You, Mr President”.
At his first stop in Minneapolis, he met “patriots” whose small businesses were destroyed in the riots. “All they wanted was to live the American dream, to start a business and a family and give back to the community they call home,” he said.
“While the leadership of the Democratic party cheered, their dreams were burned to the ground.
“I’m here to help you. We will bring back law and order to your community [and] help these innocent Americans rebuild their lives … By contrast, the Democrats are promising to elevate their left-wing war on cops and to bring it up to the White House in the form of Sleepy Joe Biden”
He is sharpening his attacks on Biden and his “nasty” new running mate “Phony Kamala” Harris.
“(Biden) is the puppet of left-wing extremists trying to erase our borders, eliminate our police, vilify our heroes, take away our … fossil fuel, destroy our second amendment (guns), attack the right to life and replace America freedom with left-wing fascism,” the President said.
He even joked about running for a third, fourth, fifth or sixth term, a trolling tactic guaranteed to send his enemies wild. “They spied on my campaign. We should get a redo!”
As polls tighten in battleground states, Trump has reclaimed his mojo just in time.
CNN’s latest poll has him within four points of Biden. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has Biden nine points ahead, at 50 to 41 per cent, but behind the headlines there is promising news for Trump.
Asked to rate their feelings for each candidate, 30 per cent of those polled felt “very positive” toward Trump compared to 18 per cent who felt that way about Biden. For Trump, that’s close to his all-time high of 33 per cent in January.
Biden, however, had plummeted 17 points from a “very positive” of 35 per cent in January 2017, and 30 in January 2018, when Trump was registering just 20 and 24, respectively.
On the number one issue of concern to voters, Trump was rated as better at handling the economy than Biden by 48 to 38 per cent.
On the question of how they would feel if Trump were elected president in November, 27 per cent of those polled said they would feel “optimistic and confident” while only 19 per cent would feel the same way about Biden.
Now it’s true that more felt “pessimistic and worried” that Trump would “do a bad job” — 48 per cent compared to Biden’s 36 per cent.
But it is clear that the President has the lock on optimistic, positive Americans, which suggests much will depend on the mood of the country come November.
“MELANIA HATES DONALD!”
Desperate anti-Trumpers fell back on an old favourite this week: “MELANIA HATES DONALD!”
A viral video shows the First Lady and President Trump stepping off Air Force One on Sunday after a weekend away at the Trump golf course in New Jersey.
They are holding hands at the top of the aircraft stairs, but it is windy, and her dress billows up. She takes her right hand off the railing to hold down her skirt but she’s wearing high heels and the stairs are steep, so she needs to grab the railing again.
MOMENTS AGO: President Trump, First Lady Melania, and Barron arrive at Joint Base Andrews from Morristown, NJ. pic.twitter.com/f6z3m5gx8w
— The Hill (@thehill) August 16, 2020
Now she has to use her left hand to preserve her modesty, the hand her husband is holding. She removes it from Trump’s grasp and firmly presses her wide Birkin bag against her dress to keep it from flying up as she navigates the stairs.
Trump, not used to wearing high heels or a dress, like most husbands is clueless. He doesn’t know why his wife has dropped her grip, so he nudges her hand a couple of times with his fingers, to no avail.
With 14-year-old son Barron in tow, the couple make it to the bottom of the stairs without incident, stop to smile at a receiving party before walking together across the tarmac in seeming harmony.
There is literally nothing acrimonious or remarkable about the 25-second scene. It would be familiar to any married couple, with the wife intent on avoiding a wardrobe malfunction while the husband is oblivious.
Yet a thousand deceptive headlines were launched to describe the occasion, along the lines of: “Melania repeatedly refuses to hold Trump’s hand in frosty exchange as they arrive in DC”.
Armchair body language experts on social media interpreted every gesture as a sign that Melania hates Donald so much she can’t bear for him to touch her. Trolls suggested she was paid for sex with Trump and charged extra for holding his hand.
The commentary was as predictable as it was malevolent, a continuation of the four-year campaign to disparage the First Lady, mock her marriage and dislodge her family from the White House.
The haters should have realised by now that she is coolly impervious. No amount of mean girl taunts will turn Melania into the undercover Resistance operative of their dreams.
Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph