GOP Convention Lowest In Viewers Of Last 8 Conventions

The chart above is from Axios.com. It shows the Nielsen figures for the viewership of the last four Democratic and Republican convention.

The number of viewers who watched both conventions this year is significantly lower than in previous years. The Democratic convention had 5.2 million fewer viewers than in 2016. The Republican convention had 8.4 million fewer viewers than in 2016.

On the most important night, the last day when the presidential nominees give their acceptance speech, about 800,000 more people watched Biden's speech than watched Trump's speech.

The GOP "Convention" Was Full Of Propaganda And Lies

If you wanted some truth about what is happening in America, this week's Republican convention was not the place to go. It was nothing more than a festival of lies and propaganda -- portraying Trump as the savior of this country (and Western Civilization).

Here is just part of McKay Coppins described it in The Atlantic:

Americans who tuned in to this week’s Republican National Convention were treated to a slickly produced, four-day dispatch from an alternate reality—one in which the president has defeated the pandemic, healed America’s racial wounds, and ushered in a booming economy. In this carnival of propaganda, Donald Trump was presented not just as a great president, but as a quasi-messianic figure who was single-handedly preventing the nation’s slide into anarchy.

Every presidential-nominating convention is, to a certain extent, an exercise in hype and whitewashing. But Trump’s 2020 convention went further—rewriting the history of his first term with such brazenness that it seemed designed to disorient. The setting of the convention’s final night reinforced the surreality: the made-for-TV stage on the White House’s South Lawn; the cheering, unmasked audience of more than 1,000 standing shoulder to shoulder; the speakers blaring Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” loud enough to drown out protesters at the gate. . . .

Many of the Republican strategists I spoke with this week flatly acknowledged that their party was presenting a version of recent events that veered toward fan fiction. But given the bitter mood of the country and the dire state of the race, they said, the campaign’s desperation was understandable. . . .

The rat-a-tat of distortions and conspiracy theories began with Trump’s address to delegates on Monday, when he accused Democrats of trying to rig the election with universal mail-in voting, which he called “the greatest scam in the history of politics.” (It is not.) Later, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana claimed that Joe Biden had “embraced the insane mission to defund” the police. (He has not.) Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida warned that Democrats would “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door.” (They will not.) And Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said Democrats wanted to “keep you locked in your house until you become dependent on the government for everything.” (They do not.) . . .

The myth that Trump has already beaten the virus pervaded the convention. As my colleague Russell Berman has noted, the pandemic was repeatedly referred to in the past tense. “It was awful,” Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in his speech on Tuesday. . . .

Much of the Republican convention seemed to be organized around erasing the national memory of Trump’s bigotry. He presided over a naturalization ceremony. He surprised an ex-felon with a presidential pardon. A slate of Black speakers was invited to say nice things about the president, defend him against accusations of racism, and tout his role in passing a criminal-justice-reform bill.

Of course, in between these feel-good stunts and testimonials were bleak warnings about the “Marxist revolutionary” forces that are wreaking havoc in American cities—and could be coming for you next. The most potent of these segments featured the McCloskeys, an affluent Missouri couple who went viral after pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their house in June. “Make no mistake,” Patricia McCloskey told viewers, “no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.” Protesters, she said, are “not satisfied with spreading chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether.” Police brutality—the issue at the heart of this summer’s unrest—received only glancing mentions during the convention. . . .

The programming may have been glossier, softer, more savvily pitched to certain demographics. But the goal seemed the same—not to persuade or convert, but to disorient and demoralize. Americans have spent the past four years watching the Trump presidency unfold, and they are not overwhelmingly impressed by what they’ve seen. His campaign appears determined to make voters second-guess themselves. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote, the purpose of propaganda “has never been to instill convictions, but to destroy the capacity to form any.”

Not A Convention - A Festival Of Lies By Trump Sycophants

The Republican Party is holding its "convention" this week. But it's not really a convention. The party didn't even pass a platform, but just said whatever Trump wants to do is OK with them.

It really seems more like a cult (or a sick and perverted fan club) meeting to praise its leader -- telling lie after lie to keep "dear leader" happy. Reality and facts are not present, and aren't wanted. Facts are not needed by these sycophants, or their leader.

Here's part of how Ezra Klein puts it at Vox.com:

“If you really want to drive them crazy, you say ‘12 more years,’” Trump said as he opened the convention. The crowd happily chanted “12 more years.” It drove me a little crazy, but mostly left me tired. It’s a performance of provocation hiding a convention that had nothing to say, only enemies to fight, social changes to fear.

What is there to say upon hearing Trump described as “the bodyguard of Western civilization?” It’s not an argument so much as a loyalty oath, an offering cut from the speaker’s dignity and burnt for the pleasure of the Dear Leader himself. But the outrageousness is the point. Protest and you’re triggered — just another oversensitive lib who can’t take a joke. Ignore it and you’re complicit. To care is to lose.

The Republican Party on display Monday night didn’t represent an ideology or a governing agenda. It was a personality cult, and a tired one at that. Republicans, in a break with tradition, refused to write a party platform. They chose, instead, to recycle their 2016 platform. But the delegates agreed that if they had met to fashion an actual agenda, they “would have undoubtedly unanimously agreed to reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration,” and as such, “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”

They also called “on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration.” And here, I want to fulfill their request: The RNC’s support for President Trump and his administration could not possibly be stronger. I have covered American politics for two decades and never have I seen a party more ferociously committed to supporting whatever it is their leader tells them to support.

The problem for Republicans is that the main thing Trump has told them to support is himself. There are no detailed policy proposals, much less a coherent ideology or set of governing principles. And so speech after speech followed the same template: How was America going to stop the coronavirus? By reelecting Donald Trump. How was it going to revive its economy? By reelecting Donald Trump. How was it going to ensure domestic harmony? By reelecting Donald Trump.

The contradiction at the heart of the convention, of course, is that Donald Trump is currently president. I’m dead serious. How would reelecting Trump resolve these crises that Trump has proven unable to resolve — and has, in many cases, worsened — in office? No one even took a shot at that Rubik’s cube. Instead, the speakers awkwardly talked around the fact of Trump’s incumbency. He was presented, strangely, as both incumbent and challenger; the man who had fixed America’s problems, but also the man needed to fix an America beset by more problems than ever. . . .

The falsehoods flew thick. . . .

The core of Trump’s agenda has always been untethering American politics from factual reality, and among Republicans, at least, he’s been startlingly successful. The convention is a loyalty test for Republicans, and a reality check for the rest of us.

Repubs Try To Intimidate Protesters

It looks like the Bush administration is going to continue trashing the Constitution right up until their last minute in power. In the last few days, the local police at the Republican Convention site cities along with the FBI (see above photo) have raided at least four homes and a public meeting site. They have arrested several people, charging them with "conspiracy to incite a riot", searched the sites and taken photos of over forty people (who had not broken any law) after handcuffing and questioning them.

I don't know what the police think gives them the right to apprehend and photograph people who have broken no law. Have they forgotten the Constitution guarantees people the right to assemble? They also have the right to protest, but were raided before any protests had taken place.

In another action, police swarmed and seized a bus that was transporting members of a group called Earth Justice. They just left the bus riders stranded on the side of the road. It is unknown why the bus was seized -- probably just to cause problems for the protesters.

At least one city council member has accused the local and federal police of trying to quash or suppress legal protests. I would call it intimidation -- just a sampling of the police state the Republican leadership would like to install in America. Fortunately, the protesters say they refuse to be intimidated, and the protests will continue as planned.

I haven't seen such gross police misbehavior since the mid-seventies. Obviously, they don't believe freedom or constitutional rights should exist for anyone who disagrees with Bush/McCain policies.

Republican Reps Not Chosen As Delegates

A few years ago, the Democratic Party created the position of "superdelegate". This allowed the Democratic senators and representatives to be delegates to the national convention, but left the normal delegate slots for grassroots party workers. But the Republicans have not done this, and many years a good portion of the delegate slots have been given to these elected officials.

But that doesn't seem to have happened this year. Although Both Republican senators have been given delegate slots, the representatives were not automatically given delegate slots.

According to the Texas party's national nominations committee chairman, Butch Davis, the party gave the delegate slots to grassroots party members this year. This has upset some of the representatives who were not chosen, like Joe Barton (pictured above).

Barton is angry, and as my grandmother would have said, he "throwing a hissy fit". Barton thinks the new policy is "pretty shortsighted", and said of it, "I’d say it was stupid."

Now the Republicans aren't saying that Barton can't go to the convention. In fact, they are offering him, and the other representatives, floor privileges. But that's not good enough for Barton. He seems to think he has a right to a delegate slot, and since he wasn't given one, he's not going to the convention.

I doubt if they'll miss him much.