Republicans’ Message Of Unity Didn’t Last Long

Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic reports from the RNC that, after claiming the high ground following Donald Trump’s near assassination, the GOP spent night two accusing Democrats of unleashing violent migrants to rape, murder, and sex-traffic their way across the US.

By Branko Marcetic, Jacobin

Well, that was fast. Immediately following the past weekend’s shocking assassination attempt on Donald Trump, reports stated the former president had an epiphany. Out was the demonization, recrimination, and incendiary rhetoric that had characterized partisan politics in the Trump era, and which some charged had created an atmosphere that led to the attempt on the former president’s life. In was a message of unity, reportedly by personal order of the candidate himself, who saw a chance to meet the national mood, take the higher ground, and bring the nation together.

That would have likely been a refreshing and appealing message to the millions who tuned in last night to watch the Republican National Convention. But that’s not what was offered.

The RNC’s second night was instead among the grimmer few hours of political television, as speaker after speaker painted a relentlessly bleak (and often dishonest) vision of a country ravaged by skyrocketing crime and overrun with violent foreigners, criminals, rioters, and terrorists bent on the country’s destruction. This was all the doing of Trump’s political opponents in the Democratic Party who — in one of their many cynical efforts to steal elections, in this case by flooding polling places with illegally voting migrants — have deliberately unleashed an invasion of bloodthirsty rapists and terrorists across the border who are now murdering, raping, and sex-trafficking their way across American neighborhoods.