A MAGA Ticket for a MAGA Party
No doubts left about this. It's Trump's ticket and his party, too.
Well, there’s your Republican Ticket
Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance, a ticket that extends the propaganda life of the MAGA movement for the foreseeable future.
Maybe you watched it on the TV or, like me, on the internet. Didn’t matter. What you saw from the Republican Convention in Milwaukee was an attempt to spread sweet icing over a most suspicious cake.
Donald Trump Jr. carried the MAGA message and just to underline it, brought his daughter to the podium so she could tell everyone what a great grandfather Donald Trump is. He gave the grandkids candy and whatnot and called them at school to make sure they were doing okay and on and on.
She could have said, “He bought me my own pony,” and it would have fit right in.
Both Don Jr. and the granddaughter took some swats at the media for picking on gramps, not to mention those weaponized prosecutors and Biden Administration toadies who accused him a long list of crimes.
When she was done talking, it was clear the suffocating ideology that defines the Trumps has been planted in a new generation. Other than that, she seemed quite sweet and very well spoken. She said nothing about camps for immigrants or National Guard roundups or federal troops being sent into American cities to stop the awful crime wave.
In other words, the entire Milwaukee Convention has been an extension of the same toxic sludge Donald Trump has been spreading for lo these many years now.
And now, he has added a new, compelling sludge spreader as his veep.
J.D. Vance is a very smart man, a brilliant student, a compelling author (Hillbilly Elegy) and just like Donald Trump except half his size and many times smarter.
He leaned very hard on the most important political image in years, the shot of Trump with his ear wound and blood on his face pumping his fist and urging people to fight. Another huge applause line.
They tried to soften the GOP message a bit. An ancient war veteran read through a speech, stumbling enough to draw sympathetic applause. He said if Donald Trump is elected, he would reenlist! You had to admire the man, if not for the venue, then certainly for the honors he wore on his uniform, a genuine warrior who answered his country’s call in a conflict most young people probably don’t know about.
Big cheers after that speech, and the man earned them.
This was an obvious attempt to try to push aside Trump’s heartless comments about veterans earlier in the campaign. See, this guy was on the beaches at Normandy and would do it again if Donald Trump sent him! Obviously, he loves our veterans.
I’m not sold on that. Maybe a commitment to more money for the Veterans Administration would ease my concerns.
And maybe he is a good grandfather. I hope so, because every kid needs a good grandparent. (Read Vance’s book to finds out all about that.) But that’s not at all the question. Would he be a better president than he was the first time around?
No sign of that. In fact, he apparently wants to dismantle the federal government, particularly those nasty parts concerned about human rights and environmental protection.
The first step in the process of rebuilding yourself is looking at your foundation for faults. Houses built on bad foundations are likely to falter, perhaps even to collapse.
The same is true of people.
There is no sign in Donald Trump that he is ready to remedy any of his flaws. He is much more focused on retribution than on rehabilitation. We may pay a big price for that.
Charlie Madigan was a reporter and editor for United Press International and The Chicago Tribune for four decades and Writer in Residence and professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago for a decade. He lives in Evanston, Ill
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Spot on !