Donald Trump's dark spectacle is just a rerun -- and America's sick of it

[marmar]

Donald Trump's dark spectacle is just a rerun — and America's sick of it
Trump keeps rolling out the same threatening vision of American chaos. Does he even understand he's in charge?

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
AUGUST 28, 2020 12:30PM (UTC)


(Salon) The party conventions are over and we can take a breather for a few days until the fall campaign begins in earnest. The next big events will be the debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and I think we'll all need to lay in a new supply of antacids and alcohol to get through those.

It's pretty clear that Trump's grand vision was to tape all the speeches of the Republican National Convention's first three nights in an empty auditorium to make his big night look bigger and better by comparison. I have no doubt he'll be desperate to see how his night did in the ratings. If he didn't beat Biden's numbers he'll be forced to call the TV ratings fake news and that will be very disappointing. He loves ratings.

Trump certainly put it all out there, staging a big partisan rally on the lawn of the White House, with all the flags in Washington as background, big screen TVs and a grand entrance from the balcony. (For a moment I thought he was planning to deliver it from there, as if he were Il Duce himself.)

The use of the people's house for this sort of event is unprecedented but obviously Trump didn't care about that. In fact, he seems to have taken pride in his defiance of the tradition, calling it more than a house but instead a "home," pointing toward it and bragging at one point, "The fact is, I'm here, and they're not." It was as if the White House were just another of his many properties, to be used for commercial and personal gain.

Trump knows how to bring the pomp, and the spectacle made clear why it's unethical to use the White House or national monuments for partisan purposes. The familiar grandeur of the White House and the grounds lent an imperial majesty to the event that was frankly un-American. Let's just say it's kind of gross to see the White House used like one of Saddam's palaces. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/08/28/donald-trumps-dark-spectacle-is-just-a-rerun--and-americas-sick-of-it/

[BeckyDem]

1. I saw it as loonier beyond belief.

The pandemic is over...why would I need a mask, I have Trump!

Oh and fuck that police union NYC bastard and Ghouliani. That is the party of radical and Biden/Harris needs to call them out.

[BKDem]

2. It's remake -- same old shit but with better sets.