I generally think the “Trump kids have a bright future in politics” claim is overrated, but I don’t have the energy in me for the longform version of that argument tonight.
Whether churches are allowed to reopen has been a big issue during the COVID-19 pandemic, so I’m not surprised to hear Trump Jr. mention it. So far, the churches that want to operate as normal are not really winning: This summer, the Supreme Court has rejected a couple of churches’ legal challenges to state orders limiting attendance.
Republicans traditionally make more references to ideological labels in their speeches than Democrats, and often equate conservatism with American values. Despite Trump’s heresy on some issues, the convention is starting off with at least as much ideological language as usual (while Democrats largely avoided it, as usual).
A theory: there are different implications when the nominee’s family speaks at the convention on behalf of an incumbent president rather than on behalf of a challenger. When this happened last week for Biden and Harris, their families offered a spirit of “getting to know the candidate,” especially because Harris has not been a national figure for all that long. But Don Jr. isn’t speaking about his dad’s character or helping us get to know him — he’s defending his father’s record and talking about canceling the Founders. This seems a lot more like the kind of speech that an up-and-comer in the party might give than a “family of the candidate” speech.
Trump Jr. is right that the speed of the economic recovery has surprised economists — including the economists we survey every other week. What he didn’t mention, though, is that unemployment is still historically high, and the pace of recovery slowed down considerably in the most recent monthly jobs report.
If we’re talking about Trump children running for office, I’m marking Don Jr. down as a likely. Perhaps: Ivanka. Unlikely: Eric, Barron. Impossible: Tiffany.
Trump Jr. calls the Democratic nominee “Beijing Biden.” Is that a new one?
Yeah, Chris, I think Haley is overrated by pundits because she’s the kind of Republican who appeals to the Republicans they know. I don’t really see her appealing to the party base.
Yes, Nathaniel. There’s nothing politics likes more than family dynasties.
Here’s Donald Trump Jr. A lot of people seem really convinced that he will take up his father’s political mantle and run for office in the near future. I … don’t see it. Am I crazy?
Haley, despite being frequently mentioned as a potential 2024 contender, does not really generate much heat on Twitter.
I’m getting strong West Wing vibes from the audio and visual choices.
The school-choice and judges stuff has faded as we’ve entered prime time. Instead, it’s been more attacks on socialism and other culture war appeals.
This speech makes me curious how involved Haley will be in campaigning for Trump this fall. She can clearly connect with a group of voters (the Romney-Clintonites) that no one in the convention has thus far has really spoken to.
Kind of a paint-by-numbers speech by Haley — at least until talking about her personal experience as a child of immigrants. But she’s one of the few prominent Republicans speaking at the convention who is more in the establishment camp than the Trump camp, and to the extent that Trump is trying to win over Trump-agnostic Republicans, it’s smart to put her in prime time.
Very interesting rhetorical move there by Haley, turning the idea that “Black lives matter” on its head by saying that Black police officers shot on the job matter, Black business owners whose businesses are looted matter, etc.
“The pandemic has set us back, but not for long,” says Haley. She is one of the many speakers tonight to attribute the coronavirus to China, another potential theme of the convention for Republicans.
Haley and Mike Pence both seem to be setting themselves up nicely to compete in the future Republican Party, whether or not Trump loses. It may not be as difficult as many assume to merge traditional Republican messaging with positive views about Trump in 2024 or 2028, appealing to Trump supporters and disappointed Republicans by bashing Democrats.
Haley calls Democrats socialists, attacks “cancel culture” and rebuts charges that the GOP is racist. Along with her foreign policy credentials after being ambassador to the U.N., I think you can see the contours of a 2024 presidential bid in all of it.
Since we’re watching the RNC and Haley is onscreen, I’m just going to leave this here.
“Last time, Biden’s boss was Obama. This time, it would be Sanders, Pelosi and the Squad.” Haley continues a theme of dragging Biden down not by attacking him per se, but by tying him to less popular figures in the Democratic Party. (Obama is not unpopular.)
Haley is going all in against political correctness and cancel culture.
Haley making the subtext, text. “America is not racist,” she says.
Haley touts the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is actually in Israel now, and he’s expected to give his RNC speech tomorrow night from Jerusalem — a deeply important place for many people of faith, but one that’s especially resonant for conservative Christians.
Haley is giving a speech Republicans could have given about George W. Bush or John McCain. It is probably the most effective overture yet of this RNC to the old-guard Republicans whom the DNC targeted so aggressively.
On Seth’s note about speculation surrounding Haley, it’s worth noting that despite the quadrennial speculation, the sitting vice president was not swapped out. He was renominated alongside Trump this morning.
Jeanne Kirkpatrick was a potential 1988 presidential contender for the GOP, but she didn’t take the plunge.
The Jeanne Kirkpatrick hook was kind of clever and pretty typical convention speech fodder all at once. And I think the first Reagan reference we’ve heard?
Nikki Haley is now speaking. She has had a fascinating political trajectory. She got national attention as the South Carolina governor who oversaw the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse in 2015. Since that time, she has been discussed repeatedly as a vice presidential or presidential candidate, and she has generally positioned herself as a defender of Trump. She seems to be calculating that that’s the direction the party will be going in the future, and is likely a contender for 2024. She’ll be 52 then.
It was very similar in style and tone to some campaign ads the Trump campaign has already released.
Nate, my thoughts exactly! All the video stylings of a traditional attack ad.
I talk about how the conventions are often a de facto commercial. But that Ocasio-Cortez/Sanders/Biden video looked like it was literally a commercial, no?
Biden did very little last week that played into the GOP’s “socialism” attack. The Democratic convention featured Republicans every night and made few overt references to the left. Biden has spent his whole life smack dab in the middle of the Democratic Party. I won’t discount the socialist attacking making some progress, but Biden is certainly not going to be easy to hit on this.
Now here’s a video assailing the Democratic “far left.” It name-checked Rep. Ilhan Omar, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez and argued that Biden is in “lockstep” with them.
In 2016, Florida exit polls found that Trump won among Cuban American voters, 54 percent to 41 percent, whereas Hillary Clinton won decisively among other non-Cuban Latino voters, 71 percent to 26 percent. But as Nathaniel mentioned, Cuban Americans have been trending toward Democrats, so Trump wants to shore up his support among this key constituency in South Florida.
Speaking to dangers of socialism is very 2020, but putting the spotlight on a Cuban feels very post-2012 election. The GOP postmortem of Romney’s election urged the party to pursue Hispanic voters. I think in this speaker, we see glimmers of the party that some in the GOP want it to be — more demographically inclusive.
Sarah, the threat of socialism has long been important for uniting the Republican coalition (it scares religious, national security and economic conservatives). Since Biden is perceived as more moderate, they are trying to portray him as a puppet of a left-wing ideological movement. The way Biden won the primary against Sanders makes that harder, but Republicans were able to move perceptions of Hillary Clinton leftward despite her defeating Sanders.
One thing I’ve found noteworthy, Sarah, is the kind of socialism that Biden is being accused of. It’s not the socialist health care attack line I would have predicted earlier this year. Instead, we’re hearing a lot more about defunding the police. Biden, of course, has not come out in favor of defunding the police, so I’m not sure it will be more effective, but it’s definitely a contrast with what I would have expected before this summer.
It’s hard to know if the socialism label is actually harder to apply to Biden than to someone like Sanders, especially because presidential candidates have generally avoided some of the labels that Sanders embraces. So we don’t quite know if he would be perceived a lot differently from a mainstream Democrat. However, socialism is more popular among younger voters, and a struggling economy might present an opportune time for political labels that suggest fundamental problems with capitalism.
I think it is effective enough for the Republican base, which can easily see party unity at the DNC as evidence that Biden will be swayed further left. But for an undecided voter, it’s hard to imagine they’ll buy that Biden is somehow radically left.
We’ve talked about how socialism is a bogeyman for the GOP, but one thing we’ve never been totally convinced of is that this attack would work on someone like Biden, as opposed to someone like Sanders. What do you think? Do you think Biden opened up an avenue last week for this line of attack, and do you think it’s effective for the GOP to use it against him and Harris?
One downside to the RNC’s approach is that each podium-based speaker is hitting the same visual beats. Same walk out, same camera angles, same background, just about the same outfit (either a suit or a red dress). They’ve begun to blur together for me.
It’s interesting that there at least seem to be some efforts to reach a different wing of the party — or at least, that’s my thought process behind Republicans pointing to Trump as an empathetic president. That doesn’t feel targeted for his base in the same way.
So far, the RNC has played up its support from veterans. Where do veterans stand on Trump? Polling from 2017 showed that veterans were evenly split on job approval of the president.
Trump has been working hard to appeal to Cuban American voters in Florida, a traditionally Republican constituency that has slipped toward Democrats in recent cycles. He has taken a tough stance on Venezuela (a proxy for Cuba’s similarly socialist, totalitarian regime), aired Spanish-language ads in Florida defending Goya Foods from Democratic attacks and now has Maximo Alvarez, a Cuban immigrant, speaking at the RNC.
That segment played up an element of Trump’s approach to national security, even as news broke last week that a bunch of former Republican officials in the national security sector came out against Trump.
During the conversation about Americans held in terrible situations abroad, I was reminded of the horrifying story of Otto Warmbier, who was held in a North Korean prison and died after returning home to the United States in a coma. The situation began while Obama was in office but continued into the Trump administration. This was one of the most stunning things I’ve ever read.
Right on, Galen. It seems like the Democrats went with a “things aren’t normal” vibe while Republicans seem to be trying reassure Americans that things are normal.
On that note, Seth, this is very far from the first time a Trump aide has been accused of violating the Hatch Act. Last year, an independent agency concluded that presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway had repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and recommended that she be “removed from federal service” as a result. Conway did recently announce that she’s stepping down from the White House, but for unrelated reasons.
Several Trump speeches have occurred from the White House tonight. The Hatch Act prohibits most federal employees from engaging in campaign work in the course of their official government duties. The Hatch Act is generally seen as not applying to the president, and thus using the White House grounds for an explicit campaign function, while a massive departure from the way previous presidents have behaved, is probably not against the law. It is illegal for White House staffers to participate in this way, and to spend federal money for campaign purposes.