After watching almost all of the Democratic National Convention and then one night of the Republican National Convention, I immediately wondered if the two parties were living on the same planet.
Last week I saw a beautiful mosaic of people of different colors, ethnicities, religious backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, professions, and political persuasions. This week, a starkly different country emerged, mostly white, gun-toting, fear-mongering, with a revisionist narrative making Donald Trump look like a family-loving, Black-loving, honest, and competent president.
Last week people were wearing masks, social distancing, and there were no audiences. This week no one is wearing a mask, social distancing is nothing but an oxymoron, and there are audiences of sycophants standing or sitting shoulder to shoulder bowing at the feet of the president. Perhaps because the White House has ample supplies of COVID testing kits, it explains why all the people gathered around the president were not wearing masks. Let’s just hope there were no false negative results.
Last week the numbers of coronavirus deaths (nearly 180,000 and counting) and cases (nearly 6 million with between 30,000 and 40,000 new cases a day) were talked about and mourned. This week, apparently no one has died and “the China virus” is a thing of the past. The president falsely declared that a gentleman who had contracted the virus was safe to be around. Apparently that was filmed before the first case of a coronavirus survivor being re-infected by the virus was confirmed in Hong Kong.
I read that Melania talked about the victims of COVID and grieved the losses on the second night of the convention. She embodies the qualities of a “comforter in chief” because she has integrity, speaks from the heart, and is honest. For this I applaud her.
Last week Black lives mattered. This week there is no mention of George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and the countless victims of police brutality. Apparently the Republicans feel there is no such thing as systemic racism – it’s a hoax.
According to St. Louis personal injury lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the suburbs are going to be destroyed by the Democrats. This is the couple who brandished an assault rifle and pistol while standing on the porch of their Renaissance Palazzo threatening peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators who were walking to the house of the St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson.
Their actions caught the eye of the president, who retweeted the video of their illegal standoff. Now they are the president’s spokespeople for “saving the suburbs.”
First of all, the McCloskeys’ mansion, which was built in 1912 by the daughter of Adolphus Busch, of Anheuser-Busch fame, is not at all emblematic of your typical suburban home. How much more tone deaf can the Trump administration get by picking this couple as their mouthpiece.
A quick Google search of the couple reveals that they constantly abuse the court system for their own twisted sense of property rights. The synagogue next door made the mistake of placing bee hives too close to the McCloskeys’ wall and they found the hives destroyed with a note from Mark McCloskey demanding the removal of the debris; otherwise they will file a suit for damages and attorney’s fees. The bees were minding their own business, pollinating the vegetable gardens and apple trees of the synagogue, and making sweet nectar for the Jewish children to enjoy, but that didn’t matter to the McCloskeys. What mattered to them was a patch of grass and lording over their neighbors their selfish property interests no matter whom they hurt.
The McCloskeys’ four-minute screed blames the Democrats for the abolishment of suburbs. Their quiet streets are going to be invaded by criminal lawlessness and low-quality apartments. Their blatantly racist and hateful language, shouting about “Marxist revolutionaries,” “mobs,” and “anarchists” unabashedly mimics the president’s language. No wonder the president finds them to be “fine people.”
I thought the RNC was going to project a positive image of America. They missed the bullseye on that goal so far.
(Susannah Colt lives in Whitefield. She can be reached at susannahbcolt@gmail.com.)