Bedtime in Cleveland
By P.J. O'Rourke
You can turn out the lights again...
In modern American politics, presidential candidates are selected by primary and caucus voters during a campaign cycle that's almost four years long. By the time we get to the national party conventions, we're tired of the whole process and ready to go to sleep.
The GOP convention in Cleveland was supposed to be different. It was supposed to wake us up. We were promised a wild floor fight among deadlocked delegates and massive demonstrations in the streets outside.
You can go back to bed now. But I won't say, "Sweet dreams." Nothing that happened during the four-day Trump infomercial at Quicken Loans Arena changed my mind about what's likely to occur in November.
Hillary "Lock her up!" Clinton will have a lock on the Oval Office.
The Republicans were playing sandman before the convention even started, when Trump announced that his vice presidential running mate would be Mike...
Mike Tyson? That would have been exciting. Mike Meyers? Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, could be useful in the election fight against "Mrs. Evil." Mike Huckabee? You're getting warmer.
No, it was Mike Pence. "Mike who?" ask all of you who live in the 49 states that aren't Indiana.
Hoosier Gov. Mike Pence is a tea-party social conservative. He will attract to the Trump ballot all of the tea-party social conservatives who were previously going to vote for Hillary. I believe there are three of them.
He will attract no one else.
Here's a quick rundown of the convention "action"...
Convention Day 1
"Make America Safe Again"
(Yes, but it might also be a good idea to "Make America Dangerous Again.")
The important thing that happened was a floor vote to pass the Republican Party platform. That platform contains a harebrained call to reinstate outdated Depression-era Glass-Steagall banking regulations preventing commercial banks from investment-bank activity.
Going back to the way banks were run when Bernie Sanders was a kid – great idea! It will make things so much simpler. All we'll have to do is watch Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life and we'll understand everything about the banking industry.
The other thing that happened was Donald Trump made an entrance to introduce his wife Melania. I mean he made an entrance – with fog machines, Oscars ceremony lighting, and Queen's "We Are the Champions" blasting at sports-event volume.
Do we want a presidential administration combining the features of disco, Hollywood, and the NFL?
Personally, as a Patriots fan, with Tom Brady suspended for the first four games, I'm not so sure.
Convention Day 2
"Make America Work Again"
(Well, maybe. But if somebody would get interest rates and bond yields back up to normal, I wouldn't mind retiring.)
The big news – in fact, as far as I could tell from checking the media, the only news – was that Donald Trump's wife Melania, in her speech to the Republican National Convention on Day 1, parroted some things that Michelle Obama said in her speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.
What poor soul, fresh out of journalism school, down in the bowels of some news organization, is forced to check these things?
As if candidates' wives ever have anything to say at party conventions.
Here's a word-for-word comparison between one of the passages in question:
Mrs. Trump in 2016:
From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect.
Mrs. Obama in 2008:
Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect...
I'm sorry, but you can't plagiarize the content of another person's speech if that speech has no content.
If Melania had come out and said, "Just be cute to get what you want in life, fib your head off, and treat other people like dirt," that would have been news.
Convention Day 3
"Make America First Again"
(Not sure about this one. Smacks too much of the late-1930s "America First" pro-neutrality campaign that made us late for the show on Pearl Harbor Day.)
Ted Cruz refused to endorse Donald Trump. Cruz is like the wedding guest who jumps up when the minister says, "If any man can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together, let him now speak or forever hold his peace," and then mumbles something unintelligible.
I assume this was a bad thing to do. But time will tell. Let's see how the marriage between Trump and the GOP works out.
Meanwhile, the anti-Trump street demonstrations were half-assed. Literally, in the case of this arrest reported in the Chicago Tribune:
Police Chief Calvin Williams said a protester whose pants caught fire got defensive when a police officer tried to put out the blaze. The man assaulted the officer, and "things escalated from there," Williams said.
Convention Day 4
"Make America One Again"
(One what?)
The message of Trump's acceptance speech was that things are awful in this country, and we need a Great Man to fix them.
Some of us more old-fashioned conservatives were looking around to see who that might be. Rudy Giuliani, maybe? Rudy fixed a broke, broken, and dangerous New York City. He preached a fire-and-brimstone sermon on Convention Day 1.
But it turns out Trump was referring to himself. Well, if he's going to win on a Great Man platform, Trump better start acting great.
According to the latest opinion polls, 59.1% of Americans don't think Trump is so great. Of course Hillary's disapproval rates are high too – 55.9%. So Trump only has to be 3.2% great.
If I were Donald Trump... no, that's ridiculous. My dad didn't leave me a fortune. He left me some Craftsman tools in the basement. My name is on only one building, my house. And it's only printed on the mortgage. Plus if I had my own reality TV show, it would be called "Those Darn Kids" and the tagline would be, "You're grounded!"
Still... To achieve 3.2% greatness, all Trump really needs to do is get a few percentage points more specific about the "Make America Great Again" ideas that he has.
He's already done that with his proposal for lowering corporate tax rates and boosting economic growth by repatriating capital that U.S. companies have parked overseas.
He should do the same for trade policy. America is getting a raw deal in a few cases, but Trump needs to spell these out. An across-the-board diatribe against free trade worries those of us who care about the economy. The costs of free trade, such as lost jobs, are obvious. But the benefits of free trade – lower prices for consumer goods and more efficient use of capital – are easy to overlook. Trump needs to show that he can strike a balance between the two.
A vow to build a wall should be supplemented with a vow to tear down the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and replace that agency with something that works quickly and effectively to sort positive from negative immigration. This would satisfy voters who fear illegal immigration and reassure legal immigrants, some of whom might turn into voters for Trump.
He'll need them. According to the nonpartisan Public Policy Polling organization, Trump has the support of only 13% of Hispanic voters. This group went 27% for Romney, and that wasn't enough or Romney would be the incumbent.
While he's at it, Trump should provide some specifics for women, too. He's getting only 36% support from them. Romney got 44%. And, again, it wasn't enough.
Trump did provide one generality for women – his daughter Ivanka. She gave an excellent and polished speech invoking women's rights.
Never mind that Ivanka's apolitical talking points could just as well have been presented at the Democratic National Convention. Maybe Trump should ditch Pence and put Ivanka on his ticket before Hillary grabs her for the Clinton VP slot.
My Main Takeaway From the GOP Convention
I found it thoroughly refreshing. I'm wide awake and raring to go. As well I should be – I just had a four-day nap.
Regards,
P.J. O'Rourke