My thoughts on the 2016 Republican National Convention just ended:

Pence
A dangerous dangerous guy with lunatic ideas, especially about women and science. He looks like Race Bannon from the Jonny Quest cartoon series.

Melania
The plagiarism was amusing and telling of a wobbly campaign leadership (especially the way in which they handled the aftermath cough cough coverup). But who cares? Ooops and move on, there’s nothing to see here, folks.

The Trump Kids
Donald Jr and Eric look like the Menendez brothers to me and ooze that same creepy vibe, plus Donald Jr is a repugnant big game hunter asshole who poses next to the dead elephant while holding its severed tail, so I’m obviously predisposed to despise them. Even so, they delivered perfectly fine speeches and the crowd loved them.

My nickname for Ivanka is TNT (‘Teeth ’n Tits’). She got the job done, too. Her dress looked off the rack, though. Sad.

I must have missed the other daughter, the one who doesn’t look like Maria Sharapova.

Barron looks like Damien from The Omen. Seriously.

Christie & Giuliani
Malignant opportunists. Pus sacks with legs.

Celebrity Speakers
I’m not going to write anything snarky about Scott Baio and Company because I’m probably going to be just as embarrassed by the celebrity speakers in Philadelphia next week. Suffice to say, it was a weak and odd lineup.

Ted Cruz
I’m giving simultaneous kudos and dope slaps to the Trump campaign leadership for letting Ted Cruz speak at all, much less on Thursday night, a very gracious miscalculation on their part. They could easily have just shut him out, probably should have, but I think they were desperate and self-deluded that they could turn him—until it was too late.

I’m giving props to Ted Cruz for sticking to his code of honor and his [insane and dangerous] set of ideas, and I’m giving him a HUGE benefit of the doubt that he knew exactly what he was doing, that his calculation is either to pick up the atomized pieces of a defeated and destroyed Republican Party on November 9 or strike out on his own with an independent theocratic third party movement. Otherwise, it was a kamikaze job all the way.

Trump’s Speech
Gotham City dark and unapologetically demagogic. The cornerstone law and order theme seems like a complete miscalculation, a self-serving reading of the moment that isn’t based in reality, but continued terrorist outbursts foreign and domestic could make it work. As a speech you’d really have to say it was too dark and too loud and too long and too late in the evening but, hey, I didn’t quit watching it and I doubt if anyone else did, either.

The Bottom Line
The media and the political establishment are calling the convention a trainwreck and a dumpster fire because the Trump machine didn’t have it on total lockdown, didn’t have it 100% under control. I don’t buy it. Trump supporters don’t care. John Q Public doesn’t care. The media and the political establishment are the only ones who care that the Trump campaign leadership is wobbly. It’s not an issue. No fistfights equals a successful convention in the Year of The Trump.

Tags: trump