The RNC spectacle so far

So the fascist rally broadcast from Cleveland Monday night included plagiarized material from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech, music from Freddie Mercury, and America portrayed as a crime-ridden hellscape when crime is down and the economy has significantly improved over the last Republican administration. Even with the sound muted, Rudy Giuliani looked like a madman. The prospective First Lady, aside from being given stolen material to read, showed herself to have a weaker command of English than many of the other immigrants whom her husband attacks. The Democratic candidate was condemned over Benghazi despite nine investigations having found nothing on her, demonstrating again that we are in a post-factual age. What we did not see were policy proposals. Just appeals to the mob.

On Tuesday evening, I could not bear to un-mute my TV to hear what Jeff Sessions was saying in his nomination speech for Trump, but he was grinning like an idiot. One of Donald Trump’s sons said, “He will be a great father to this nation.” Pardon me, but that is not the job he is running for. One speaker said, “Experience counts.” Who was he talking about? Certainly not the Republican presidential nominee.

MSNBC cut into a speech by the president of Standard Waterproofing (seriously, that is typical of their lineup) so Chris Matthews could interview Giuliani. What a painful choice that must have been. They should have interviewed someone with diarrhea from the norovirus that’s going around the convention. That would have been more interesting.

Mitch McConnell actually talked into the microphone onstage slamming someone else for “a tortured relationship with the truth.” As Michael Jackson would say, look at the man in the mirror. Mitch just boasted about his refusal to give a hearing to Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Trump will be the one to fill it, he says. If he succeeds in his nihilistic grab for power, he should be hanged for treason and (as Frank Kameny use to say) I will pay for the rope. What a despicable human being.

Speaker Ryan called next week’s Democratic Convention “a four-day infomercial of politically correct moralizing.” Pardon me, but what are the Republicans selling this week? Xenophobia, religious bigotry, demonization of peaceful protest, scapegoating of minorities, contempt for science, and paeans to an opportunist demagogue with no evident beliefs. Ryan says “We believe in a free society.” For whom? Enjoy your extended summer vacation, Mr. Speaker. You must be exhausted from a busy year of doing nothing for your generous publicly funded paycheck. Go jump in a lake.

Chris Christie’s fake prosecution before a mob only underscored the failure of twenty-four years of smears and politically-fueled investigations to find anything on Secretary Clinton.

The more I watched, the clearer it became that Trump is hawking his kids. That’s what this whole thing is about.