2016 July 18^th

The Republican National convention has begun. So far it is orderly; no AR-15s are in evidence and the Ohio national guard has not been called out…yet. The featured evening speaker will be Mrs. Trump, most recently seen posing provocatively for the cover of GQ, although that gig was well before her marriage to “The Donald.” I’m sure Melania Trump, right now, is nervous as a cat in a dog pound at the thought of reading a teleprompter speech on the opening night of her husband’s presidential convention. Anyone would be.

The list of speakers for this convention is not inspiring, not inspiring because no one has ever heard of many of them. Nor are most of us interested in what they have to say because we already know that it will consist of fulsome praise for Donald Trump and vitriolic criticism of Secretary Clinton and President Obama. Isn’t praising our group and demonizing theirs the purpose of political conventions?

Both sides do this. Remember “The Missile Gap;” that was John Kennedy’s attempt to tarnish the Eisenhower administration with allowing America to fall behind Russia in their respective abilities to end civilization. There was no missile gap and the evidence now is that Kennedy knew it at the time. No matter; it worked.

Much is made of the fact that Americans are not happy with the direction the country is taking. How can that be surprising given that the Republican Party and their TV arm, Fox News, have spent millions trying to convince us that we are in serious trouble. The whole point of running for election for the party out of power is to hammer away at how awful everything is…and how we will make it better. Perhaps you’ve heard the slogan “Make America great again.” Of course we have problems. Race relations are certainly deteriorating. We have nervous, fearful, poorly trained cops killing black men; in one case shooting a fleeing black man multiple times in the back as if at target practice. Then, perhaps in retaliation, we have groups of wholly innocent police officers being deliberately murdered.

What an opportunity for the right wing, and they were quick to seize it. Newt Gingrich on Morning Joe, this morning, blamed it all on President Obama. Newt was sure that he could say what he pleased on that program and no one would ask him to explain if what he said contradicted known facts.

An elderly woman I see occasionally when I walk our dog told me this morning that she is sure the country is coming apart. She expects that we will soon have a dictatorship and that martial law will be declared. She is frightened. The right wing propaganda has worked but not as they expected because she is no fan of either Donald Trump or of Hillary Clinton.