Is Hillary Clinton the glue that unites the fractious Republican Party? That seemed to be the case during the National Republican Convention in Cleveland last week.
A rabid hatred of Hillary reached obsessive levels. The gathering often resembled a kangaroo court led by a lynching party in the Wild West, especially when failed presidential hopeful New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took to the stage to rattle off a list of “indictments” of Hillary’s supposedly sneaky, treacherous, anti-American, criminal behavior.
After every charge he leveled against her, Christie would ask the crowd “Guilty or not guilty?” as if the convention hall were an impromptu courtroom or a rally at a witch-burning. The crowd, whipped into a fever pitch, would yell “Guilty!” and then scream “Lock her up! Lock her up!” I thought any minute they were going to howl with chants of “Hang her high!”
Virtually every one of Christie’s indictments was either blatantly false or based on misinformation, distortions or wild exaggerations. And, lest we forget, Hillary has not been found guilty of criminal wrongdoing in the Benghazi incident, much as a congressional committee tried and tried again to prove, spending millions of dollars on their futile fishing expedition. Nor did the FBI recommend an indictment. It’s true the FBI director termed Hillary’s email server methods extremely careless and, yes, Hillary has some explaining to do on that score, absolutely.
Hillary, like all the rest of the pols center-stage in Cleveland, has made plenty of mistakes. But to blast Hillary, as Christie and that crowd did, for being responsible for just about every international disaster and atrocity during her tenure as Secretary of State is ludicrous, and red-meat baiter Christie knew full well his rabble-rousing nonsense was just that – nonsense.
But truth be damned; truth didn’t matter because sinister fantasies fueled by Hillary-hatred united the crowd.
On the second night, another failed presidential hopeful, Sen. Ted Cruz, made an utter fool of himself (again) by snubbing Trump, a blunder Trump cleverly took advantage of by using stagecraft for one-upmanship, appearing on stage to cheers as Cruz was booed off stage, having to hustle away, wife in tow, into the oblivious night. Trump is, indeed, a master showman.
Later, up stepped yet another failed presidential candidate who’d been trounced by Trump, the somnambulistic Dr. Ben Carson. In a classic case of guilt-by-association, Carson tried to tie Hillary to 1960s leftist neighborhood organizer Saul Alinsky, who referred to Lucifer once in one of his books. If Hillary liked Alinsky, then surely she must admire Lucifer, too. Carson should have been embarrassed at his sly-and-stupid attempt to hint that Hillary is some kind of devil worshiper, but he wasn’t embarrassed. Nor were the delegates; they ate it up. The unspoken convention rule was this: Say whatever you want about Hillary, true or not; just make sure it’s bad and the badder the better.
Trump’s acceptance speech was a long rant during which his ego bulged like fat in Spandex, much to the rapturous applause of the delegates. The gloom-doom speech, which he shouted from a face distorted by anger, was punctuated by exclamation points of Hillary-hatred.
“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I’m the only one who can fix it,” Trump’s gargantuan ego promised, adding he would immediately stop attacks against cops as soon as he takes office Jan. 20. This “miracle worker” will stop terrorism, bring to America millions of new jobs and trillions of new dollars, help the working poor, replace Obamacare with a wonderful health-care system for all and reform the tax code – oh, and yes, let’s not forget “The Wall.” He’ll clean up the corrupt messes and rampant violence unleashed by Obama and by that Bonnie and Clyde of modern politics – slick Willie and his consort, the Crooked Hillary. Gee, ain’t we lucky, though? Starting Jan. 20, The Donald will give us the moon, the stars and then some. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and his new name is Donald Trump.
Other than the anti-Hillary frenzy, there were some effective moments at that convention. Mrs. Trump’s speech was warm and charming, even if parts of it were cribbed from First Lady Michelle Obama. The Trump children were all eloquent and articulate in their efforts to “humanize” their father.
Trouble is, The Donald himself should start showing that warm, all-embracing human side, if he’s capable of it, rather than letting his family vouch for him. What’s needed is a kinder, gentler Donald Trump with a few workable real-world ideas if he wants to win the presidency. He’s not likely to win it by spewing more kneejerk bluster, more shameless braggadocio and even more Hillary-hating, Hillary-bashing, Hillary-baiting.
