‘This is the great party of Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman and JFK? How things change.’

What, me worry? Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was all smiles by the end of the third day of the Democratic National Convention. Picture: AFP

Welcome to the column where you provide the content. Greg Sheridan got to grips with the weird scenes from the “virtual” Democratic convention — where the world waited, Godot-like, for the real Joe Biden as a desperately dull affair lacking spontaneity, substance or even rationality unfolded. Michael was bemused:
“And this is the great party of Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman and JFK? How things change. No substance, no policies, no honest analysis of critical domestic and international issues. The Only thing on offer — ‘you better vote Biden or Trump will have you for another four years!’”

Sally was sanguine:

“Sometimes you have to let the electorate destroy its country. We did that here in 2007 with Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. It took years to undo the damage of these two appalling leaders. But we did recover. Sort of. Presently the US is on the road to destruction in Democrat-run states. And if on that first Tuesday in November the electorate gives Joe the Whitehouse the US is finished. Unlike Australia, the US will never recover and China will reign supreme.”

Cnsrvtv carped:
“I’ve watched the snippets of the highlights daily and have yet to hear about the policy that would make America Great Again; instead of the continual deranged rants about Trump — the rants would be funny but for the fact that these are supposedly adults, who were Biden to win, will hold the reins of power not only over the USA, but to an extent over the Free World.

“The highlight for me so far has been Joe Biden’s appearance, at the end of Jill Biden’s speech, with his arm around her saying ‘I’m Joe Biden’s husband’.”

Eric II picked a bad week to give up sniffing glue:

“To me it looks like the producers of Flying High (or Airplane! in the US) regrouped to make a movie called Election! (Or maybe Democrat!).

“Roughly 80pc of the script of Flying High was taken directly from a 1957 ‘B’ movie called Zero Hour. Zero Hour was basically 25 minutes (at most) of actual story, padded out to 80 minutes with endless heavily-cliched ‘hack’ plot devices, that basically went nowhere. (Many of the more popular gags in Flying High simply recreated these pointless scenes with bizarre additions.) However, I daresay they would struggle to produce anything anywhere near as pointless and inexplicable as Democrat 2020.”

Bad, said Brad:

“John Kerry — the individual who negotiated the pathway to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons — denigrating Trump on foreign policy was the most gobsmacking bizarre moment in my opinion.”

Kudos from Christine*:

“ ‘But Obama did fatuous emptiness much more stylishly.’ Early nomination for the sentence of the year, Greg! While Michelle Obama was doing her standard depressingly boringly predictable Trump-hating shtick, while ignoring the only chaos is in long term Democrat strongholds and President Trump was only elected because of her husband Obama’s appalling anti-USA performance as president for 8 years.

“The breakout viral online star since Michelle Obama spoke yesterday is the magnificent black vibrant Conservative Kimberly Klacik, who recently won her Republican Primary for Dem-stronghold Baltimore.

“Just before Michelle spoke, Ms Klacik released a BRILLIANT 2:50 min expose of the horror of Baltimore streets under long-term (~60 years) Dem rule. She’s the Dems’ worst nightmare. Trump received 8pc of the Black vote in 2016. He’s tracking at 20-35pc Black vote this year, although even 16pc is enough to ensure a Trump victory in November.

“Ms Klacik’s video is now at 6.6 million views in 48 hours, TRUMPING Michelle Obama’s dreary speech for view numbers. I encourage everyone to watch it!

“And President Trump re-tweeted Ms Klack’s video today, rapidly reaching 60,000 likes and climbing by the minute. The Dem Convention is an absolutely hilarious dour train wreck, ensuring more and more undecided jump on the fun patriotic positive Trump Train!”

Erasmus reckoned:
“Michelle Obama’s performance was hilarious. It was pure third rate soap opera. The whispered tone, the pauses, the eyes closing for dramatic moments, the pained expression. Pure comedy.

“Being prerecorded, it was written for her by a team of writers and probably required a dozen takes with a director and acting coach on hand. Yet bad as it was, the media claimed it was Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Meryl Streep all rolled into one with elements of Abraham Lincoln.”

Tim B said:
“No party fakes it better than the Democrats and on the very rare occasions they expose Joe Biden to the light of day, it is all tightly stage-managed waffle. The cringe-worthy, disingenuous style of Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a great boost for Donald Trump, but at the end of the day Trump’s great strength (and weakness) is that he’s real. He says what he thinks without fear or favour, and some people love it and others hate it. I’ll take the straight-talker any day.

Jeff’s riposte:

“Then you have fallen for the schtick. Trump isn’t a straight talker. He’s a showman, nothing more. His entertaining is not a replacement for leadership. He is about hating what you hate. Trash talking and name calling. Almost no substance. Like his presidency in fact. You may find him authentic, but that’s his thing. It’s an unscripted fantasy from a genius level campaigner.”

David deduced:
“Democrats playing a good game over policy. Make the election about Trump and let him lurch from one disaster to another. 67pc of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Covid. That’s the policy. Make it about Trump.”

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Lockdown: Should it stay or should it go? Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Geraghty

Adam Creighton reckoned it was time for governments to stop thinking they could hold back the tide of coronavirus, learn to live with it and kiss lockdowns goodbye before the economic damage gets any worse. Peter proclaimed:

“Risk? What is risk? It’s probability times consequence. And when the probability is extremely low, which it is of the adverse outcomes you list, the risk is low. Very low. So then it becomes a cost benefit or risk management exercise. And risk management is non existent in the present hyper reaction to this virus.”

Not so fast, said Neville:

“Some points to consider by those who feel that the economic damage caused by present strategies employed outweigh the cost to public health. Previous pandemics have not involved pathogens that can be widely spread by asymptomatic ‘carriers’ or prior to the development of obvious symptoms. The possible long term health impacts on those who have ‘recovered’ are unknown at this point. Before making an apparent authoritative comment one who be wise to consult Dunning and Kruger. Do you really know enough to know what you don’t know?”

Stephen said:

“Commonsense as usual. You have been a shining light in all this madness. When will we wake up to the fact that this infection is not the bubonic plague. Anyway I’m looking forward to listening to the next couple of years of politicians justifying their responses. Cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer springs to mind.”

Kevin’s comment:

“There is increasing consensus that COVID-19 will not be eradicated and at best we will have to learn to live with it, just like the annual flu, by way of some form of inoculation. Already we are seeing people in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne becoming increasingly restless about the civil rights that out political masters have taken off us on the premise of ‘flattening the curve’ but now the talk is about eradicating the virus and the limits being imposed on our freedoms increase to a point where one has to wonder whatever happened to the proud independent Australian with their healthy disrespect for know it all authority?”

Warrick warned:

“Parliaments must be sitting during this government initiated crisis. The people must be heard via their representatives. The national cabinet has overstayed its welcome. Our 8 state and territory and one federal leader are on political point scoring missions with this prolonged ‘defeat the virus’ crusade. We cannot defeat it as New Zealand has proved. We cannot contain it as Victoria has proved.

“What we can do is take control over it and slow the spread. We can social distance and maintain a high level of personal hygiene whilst going about our day to day lives as NSW, Qld, SA & WA, NT and ACT are proving with minimal business closures, preferably no closures. Sweden did it.

“Will the 9 leaders in Australia be so chuffed when the lawsuits commence as more and more business fail and the owners seek compensation?”

Last word to Soylent Majority:

“The mechanism at play is not a balancing of economic health against individual or community health; nor about the health of the young versus that of the old; nor of that of different communities and cultures or socio-economic groups. None, in fact, of the various false dichotomies that daily form the bulk of the commentary.

“No, the mechanism at play is the balancing of fears and is entirely political in nature.

Currently the fear of infection, illness and death is the dominant fear and informs the actions of our governments the most. This is balanced against the fear of economic ruin; the fear of families who cannot see one another (especially the elderly and infirm who might never see their families again); the fears of people left without purpose, business, work or their dreams; the traditional, parochial fears of residents of some states about the actions and intent of others. Even the fears of that apparently small number of Australians who care about the wholesale removal of civil rights and what that might portend.

“Our governments will only change course when the balance of fears tips and people realise that their fear of the disease has been elevated, manipulated and turned into a full-blown moral panic in the same way that we have seen with The War on Drugs and the Cult of Climate Change.

“It’s a natural, though disappointing development in a country that is motivated by little else but fear and the quite mad conviction that agents of government can protect us from every harm, real or imagined.”

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