Another phenomenon we’re seeing tonight is younger Americans speaking in favor of Trump. One is his daughter, Tiffany, who began her speech by talking about the trials of her generation, and the other was Nicholas Sandmann. Trump struggles with younger voters, so it makes sense that the RNC might try to do this kind of outreach.
Speaking of the position of women in the GOP, we recently noted that nine of the 26 women in the Senate are Republicans, but the 2020 election could be very important for women’s representation in the Senate Republican conference. Six of the nine are up for election in November, and four face tough races: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Martha McSally of Arizona.
Here’s some Tiffany Trump trivia for you: she had a short-lived music career. The second-youngest Trump is among the least visible of her siblings, but that doesn’t mean she’s not political. For instance, in June she joined in on #BlackoutTuesday.
Republican women have set a record for congressional nominees this year, with 78. But that is still substantially behind the Democratic Party’s total of 183.
The segment that just aired featured women in the GOP in “positions of authority.” That said, when it comes to elected office, Republican women are just a small share of Congress. We recently wrote about this, and whether those numbers will improve in 2020.
We’re watching a video touting women’s support for Trump — and Conway’s role on his campaign. As Meredith Conroy and I wrote last week, though, women have been trending steadily Democratic over the past 40 years. And according to recent polls, Trump is much less popular with women than Biden. Biden is even slightly ahead among white women, which is significant because a majority of white women voted for Trump in 2016. So this Trump-is-great-for-women message could be a bit of a hard sell this year.
Attacks on the media have long been more common among Republican candidates than Democratic candidates. As early as the 1990s, more than nine out of 10 media attacks in the presidential campaigns came from Republicans. But it took a while for that media dislike to filter down to Republican voters, who now share their elites’ distrust.
Just two of the 15 members of Trump’s cabinet are women.
This segment is clearly meant to win over female voters by showing the women who work in Trump’s administration and on his campaign. This includes Kellyanne Conway, who helped him win in 2016.
Kaleigh, despite it being an obscure term, it is a term with a lot of flash! “Cancel culture” sounds scary, and scary sells.
I think they’ll be able to do that to an extent (with Sandmann, for example) but I really doubt it’s going to be a key, recurring message.
But that’s what I’m saying, Kaleigh. It’s no longer just about “the letter.” Republicans are, I think, trying to broaden its usage by conflating it with “political correctness.”
Going back to Sandmann’s speech and the broader handling of culture war issues at the RNC — I think “cancel culture” is too niche of a debate or term. Ask any of your non-media friends what they thought about “the letter,” for example, and watch the look of non-recognition flash over their eyes.
Amelia, I think Democrats probably feel like they beat that horse to death, to not much political benefit. And now, with the pandemic, they have something much more tangible to cudgel Trump with.
It’s pretty amazing to hear Biden attacked for enriching his family, when there is such a wealth of similar accusations against Trump. Yet this wasn’t something we heard about much at all at the DNC, which I was a little surprised by. It’s such an obvious line of attack against Trump.
If the goal is to force Biden into a dispute that won’t help him politically, this speech might do it. She is bashing his family so hard that I’m sure Biden will be pissed. I’ll be curious if the Biden campaign can avoid responding, which would be the smart thing to do.
So far, the GOP has spent this convention trying to tie Democrats and Biden to more unpopular people and policies in the party rather than attacking Biden’s specific record or bio (the 1994 crime bill being an exception). With this speech, Bondi gets more specific about Biden the man. I honestly would have thought there’s be more of this. If Trump wants to win, he needs to improve his own favorables (-13) or knock Biden’s down (about even).
Now we get some Hunter Biden talk! This is kind of all over the place tonight. But in general, Trump has struggled to maintain a consistent attack against Biden, who has essentially gotten to play the “generic Democrat” in an election when the generic Democrat is probably a pretty solid favorite.
To your point, Shom, Aja Romano over at Vox has a great explainer on “cancel culture” and how it originally was used as a term on Black Twitter before it was coopted more into the mainstream lexicon … and seems ripe to be rebranded again.
Hunter is certainly a weak spot for Biden, so I anticipate this being a recurring line of attack from the GOP.
Here’s former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was on Trump’s defense team during impeachment. (Remember impeachment?) She’s doing the same thing tonight as she was then — attacking Hunter Biden’s alleged corruption. Interestingly, this is more about Trump’s impeachment than we heard at the entire DNC!
Sarah, I’m gonna venture a guess that “cancel culture” will be the new “silent majority” for the Republicans.
According to our data, Trump’s convention speech in 2016 discussed social issues more often than prior Republicans and economic issues less often. The same was true of his presidential debate answers.
Yeah, “cancel culture” as I thought of it prior to the RNC was a dispute among those on the left, Galen. Or among columnists at The New York Times. It seems as if the RNC is trying to take the term mainstream.
That was a striking speech. Being anti-media is a core part of Trump’s political identity. And Sandmann strongly criticized the media.
“Cancel culture” was mentioned by a lot of speakers last night. With Sandmann, the theme comes roaring back. As we discussed on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast last night, cancel culture isn’t popular, but it’s hard to poll, because the term is obscure and can mean different things to different people.
Sandmann closes by saying that conservatives shouldn’t hide from “the tech companies” and the media and puts on a MAGA hat to finish.
“I would not be canceled,” Sandmann declares. That is such a 2020 line. Something I assume hasn’t been said at a previous convention.
The Covington Catholic kids story was not one of the prouder moments in American media history. But it’s still a relatively obscure story to be bringing up in the midst of a pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 people. It’s placing a pretty big bet on grievance politics.
“The MAGA hat kid” — Nicholas Sandmann of Kentucky — is now being featured, to tell his side of the story. The convention thus far has been chock-full of references to people who stand as symbols of a culture war, like Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the gun-wielding couple from St. Louis, and now Sandmann. These speakers are being included as part of the RNC’s recurring attack on “cancel culture,” which they argue Democrats are helping perpetuate.
Johnson is a prominent anti-abortion activist, but her gory claims about Planned Parenthood have come under a lot of scrutiny. For instance, Planned Parenthood officials shared clinic records with Texas Monthly that undermine her story about witnessing an abortion as a Planned Parenthood administrator. However, many of the broader claims that she made tonight — including the idea that abortion is closely linked to eugenics — are something you’d hear from many people in the anti-abortion movement. Earlier this year, Trump gave the movement a big symbolic victory when he became the first sitting president to attend the March for Life.
Trump has tried to aggressively limit abortion and appoint judges who will support limits on abortion. I think Johnson is right to suggest that he is the most anti-abortion president ever.
Johnson made headlines today after people rediscovered a video she posted in June where she claimed it would be “smart” for police to profile her adopted biracial son. “Because of the statistics that these police officers know in their head, they’re going to know that statistically, my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons,” Johnson said.
Activist Abby Johnson attacks Planned Parenthood for the pro-eugenics views of its founder, Margaret Sanger. This is something Planned Parenthood has only recently started to grapple with: For example, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed her name from one of their clinics this summer.
Julia, Republicans are not shying away from traditional party policy positions tonight, despite their lack of a formal 2020 platform. Many of the themes and attacks on Democrats are also recycled from pre-Trump conventions. But there are fewer unifying themes tonight, as each issue is discussed in turn.
Ironically, Shom, as Dan Cox and I wrote last fall, research has indicated that the rise of the Christian right may have driven a lot of liberals away from religion over the past few decades.
Here’s another member of one party speaking at the opposite party’s convention! This time it’s Eveleth, Minnesota, Mayor Robert Vlaisavljevich. Eveleth is in the Iron Range, an ancestrally Democratic, heavily unionized, historical mining region that lurched toward Trump in 2016. So Vlaisavljevich is quite emblematic of a certain type of Trump Democrat.
This convention has been remarkably on message so far, but it’s an odd message — a combination of criminal justice reform, something about conservation, some typical Republican talking points on the economy and now a deep cut into culture war politics. Transgender children in the bathroom! Abortion clinics open during the pandemic! There’s … a lot going on.
Emphasizing Trump’s commitment to the Evangelical community seems to be one sub-theme popping up throughout this convention. Political scientist Michele Margolis shows that oftentimes people choose their politics before choosing their religion.
Religious liberty is a place where Trump has really delivered for Christian conservatives. His administration has made religious liberty claims a priority in a number of arenas, including conscience exemptions in health care. And Trump’s Supreme Court nominees have also been part of recent majorities that significantly expanded religious liberty rights — sometimes at the expense of church-state separation, according to critics of those decisions.
The economic pitch is over, we’re talking about which bathrooms transgender Americans can use.
Some more religion, Clare!
The free exercise clause of the Constitution, which Cissie Graham Lynch (evangelist Billy Graham’s granddaughter) is now speaking about, has been a huge focus of Christian conservatives over the past few years, especially during the Obama administration and after losing the fight over gay marriage in the courts (and basically in the public square).
Republicans have been misrepresenting Biden’s stated plans for taxes (which, granted, aren’t the same as a platform). They’re repeatedly claimed Biden plans to raise taxes for all Americans, but just two days ago Biden said he wouldn’t raise taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000.
The good news for Trump is that, if voters do take into account the economy, they will give him some credit for what happened before everything went into a tailspin because of the coronvirus.
The criticism of NAFTA here reminds me of the anti-TPP fervor at the DNC in 2016. Trade was absent from the Democrats’ talking points last week, as they sort of ditched a message of economic populism for a message of broad unity. But anti-trade sentiment is alive and well in the Republican Party, which was traditionally the “party of free trade.”
How Much Is What We're Seeing Tonight Unique To Trump?
One of the big questions for this convention — and for the Trump presidency — is how much it reflects an actual difference from the Republican establishment. One of the more unusual parts of the convention so far has been Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who rose to national fame after being photographed while pointing guns at protesters. They spoke about protecting “quiet neighborhoods,” setting off culture war alarm bells. Talking about this at a national convention in barely-coded language is a feature of the Trump Republican Party. But talk about “neighborhoods” as part of cultural and racial conflict is decades old — and not even limited to one party. The convention’s efforts to showcase party diversity are also not especially new — the 2012 convention made similar overtures, to decidedly mixed effect.
Some of the “America First” rhetoric is distinct to Trump, as is the hyper-personal nature of the show. People gathering to praise the president, as well as the featured speeches by his children and family members, have a distinctly Trumpian flare. But when we associate racist language or awkward diversity efforts with Trumpism and not traditional politics, we erase the extent to which these represent long-standing problems in the Republican Party and the country as a whole.
One theme I’m noticing? WISCONSIN. Guess what the tipping-point state was in 2016 …
The focus on the economy plays to the Republican base, which believes that the economy would be fine if not for all the government barriers in the way (and certainly not because of the harmful effects of the coronavirus).
Business owner Peterson is claiming that the economy is “roaring back.” This is really a matter of perspective. Unemployment, for instance, is much lower it was in April — but as of the most recent monthly jobs report, it’s still higher than it was at the apex of the Great Recession.