I had the displeasure of watching parts of the republican national convention yesterday, and their overall message was "making America safe again." The overall message, the democrats aren't keeping us safe, they're so incompetent, they hate police, they hate the military, save us Trump! They bashed Black Lives matter on multiple occasions and repeated the phrase "blue lives matter" a few times. They talked about Benghazi. They talked about Islamic terrorism. They talked about the state of our military.
I really shutter and wonder how anyone can believe any of this. It's ridiculous. I mean, I believe conservative propaganda for a while, but I was a dumb teenager back then (so much for being liberal when you're young and getting conservative as you get older!) And even then, I wasn't that dumb. Just naive and inexperienced. I actually used my brain, figured things out, did my research, and now I don't believe this crap any more. The people at this convention are people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, on up, but they have the political mentality of like 17 year old me. It's scary. I can't help but wonder why these guys don't outgrow this stuff and look up basic facts. Even George W. Bush is scared of these guys and fears the party is at death's door. I tend to agree with such an assessment, by the way.
Anyway, to clear the air. Yes, blue lives matter, black lives matter, and, dare I say it, all lives matter, but we're focusing on the black ones for now because of police violence. For so much talk about making our country safe, there's little talk of protecting black people from trigger happy police officers. I know not all police officers shoot unarmed black people regularly. I actually have great respect for the police believe it or not. But let's not ignore a serious problem here. Which is what the republicans are doing.
Yes, Islamic terrorism is a threat. But it's a fairly small, overpublicized threat. Yes. people die from Islamic terrorists. But all things considered, it's not even the most dangerous kind of terrorism in the US. Ironically, and this will look bad for conservative anti government types, white right wing radical terrorism is statistically most dangerous kind of terrorism in the US. Even then, terrorism's numbers are paltry compared to our massive gun violence problem, which is the equivalent of multiple 9/11s a year. Amazing how conservatives are so willing to violate the constitution and our civil liberties over terrorism, but the second amendment is sacrosanct and we need to treat gun violence as a fact of life.
Speaking of which, I can't see any reasonable way to make us more safe from terrorism than we already are without violating civil liberties. We already violated them enough after 9/11 with the Patriot Act and our massive surveillance programs. What are we going to do? More spying? Kicking out Muslims unconstitutionally, etc? It's ridiculous. Extra security often comes at the expense of freedom and constitutional rights. Is that what republicans want? If the Bush administration is any model to go by, I think it is.
Or do they want to go to war with ISIS? Do they not forget that ISIS is a threat because of this mentality of invading countries over terrorism? We have George W. Bush to thank for that problem. All invading countries would do is kill American soldiers, tons of civilians, and some terrorists, and then when we leave after a prolonged, expensive, and deadly occupation, another group will form in the power vacuum. It's how it works. Our intervention worldwide is responsible for some of our current national security problems. And we want more intervention to fix it? There's something to be said about the definition of insanity here (warning, video contains strong language).
Onto the state of our military. Our military is not weak. We spend more on our military than the next 7 countries combined. We have the most overwhelming and powerful military and corresponding empire in the history of humankind. We are not weak. This is a lie. Just like claims that Obama and Clinton are weak are a lie.
The whole concept of democrats being weak on military goes back to Carter. Jimmy Carter, in his day, right before the Reagan revolution, failed to address certain foreign policy situations well like the hostage situation in iran and the USSR invasion of the Soviet Union. Since then, democrats have been labelled as "weak" on military, while republicans were strong. Maybe Reagan's aggressive tactics were useful at the end of the cold war, and helped speed up the demise of the weakened USSR, but they're total bullcrap in modern times. Obama is not weak. Obama is responsible and doesn't invade countries without thinking the situation through. Maybe the republicans have not learned from the Bush administration, but the rest of us have. Even then, many on the left criticize him as being too interventionist for our tastes, since he did not really live up to his grandiose campaign promises in 2008.
And for Benghazi, maybe we do have an embassy security problem, and maybe we are "weak" there. However, it was a systemic issue for a long time before Clinton and Obama controlled our foreign policy, and many embassy attacks happened on other presidents' watches as well. Maybe it needs to be resolved, but trying to turn our government into a kangaroo court over Benghazi is crazy. We've literally spent more time investigating this than watergate, and come up with nothing. It really baffles me the republicans still try to push Benghazi. It's one of the most fruitless attacks against Clinton ever. And as you guys know I'm no fan of Clinton either.
The fact is, the republican party is still living in the 1970s and 1980s. They're trying to push being a law and order candidate the way Nixon was a law and order candidate. They're trying to push Obama and Clinton as being weak on foreign policy just like Carter was weak on foreign policy. They've been trying to recapture the magic of Reagan for multiple elections now, and they're doing so unsuccessfully. They're aging, they're pushing bad ideas, and a lot of their population is dying off. George W. Bush is right. We are witnessing the death of the republican party. I don't think it will be a permanent death, but it is the death of the party in its current form. It's out of touch with modern society, and modern issues. Its followers are fundamentally out of touch with reality, and quite frankly, don't understand the issues as they exist today. They're a joke. It's really sad to see a party that is as delusional as the GOP be taken way more seriously than many of the other ideas that are out there.
And their followers are even worse. For all the talk of the democrats simply milking their constituents for votes by dangling minor reforms in front of them every 4 years, at least they actually are dealing with real issues in the real world. The republicans are dealing with imaginary issues of the past, and their voters fall for it hook line and sinker. I can just imagine how the world looks to your typical Trump supporter. It looks like a scary hellish place, with a mexican or a muslim around every corner ready to kill you or steal your job. To them, the world is going mad, and they buy into the overhyped media coverage that ignores any statistics or rational discussion about the problem. It's scary that people fall for this. Really scary. It's really a testament to the intelligence level of many voters in this country.
Yet even a lot of republicans are scared of Trump. There have been multiple attempts by hardline conservatives to stop Trump from being nominated. They recognize that he's too crazy, or as I mentioned in my Pence article, a different kind of crazy than the rest of the GOP. And as I mentioned above, Bush fears for the end of his party and being the last conservative president. He very well might be, although, I suspect, like Carter and Hoover before them, we may need one more to finally to remind the nation how awful these guys are. Honestly, I think we are a nation of people that no matter how many times we tell people not to put their hand on a hot stove, they will continue talking about doing it until they do. Who knows. On the other hand, maybe a long period of constantly losing elections will eventually cause them to clean up their act. It's hard to say.
Anyway, that's my impressions of the convention so far. I may update a few more times during the week with more coverage on the matter, and I didn't even touch on everything I wanted to cover. Like Melania Trump's speech. I don't know if that was intentional or if her speech writer burned her, but that's hilariously awful that her speech was literally stolen word for word from Michelle Obama. But anyway, apparently today they're going to be discussing economics, and from what I heard so far, they're also out of touch there and pushing for the abolition of the safety net and lower taxes for increased job creation. I may have fun dissecting that.
No comments:
Post a Comment