Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Well, now isn’t this something. By now you’ve probably heard that Melania Trump stole major sections the speech she gave yesterday at the Republican National Convention from the speech Michelle Obama gave at the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Before her speech, Melanie specifically told Matt Lauer that she wrote the speech with “a little help as possible.” Right, so about that. I guess the new Trump slogan should be “Make America Plagiarize Again!”

I’m going to allow the delicious irony of this settle over us all like a warm blanket. Yes, the campaign of Donald Trump – the man who has built his entire political career on the foundation of calling President Obama an America hating, foreign-born, secret Muslim – has is now using parts of a speech from the campaign of President Obama as his own. Guess the Obamas aren’t all bad after all, eh Donald?

While the schadenfreude of this blatant plagiarism will no doubt dominate today’s (and depending on how much Trump blusters and bloviates, several days) news cycle, what I don’t want to be lost in all this is just how viciously the GOP convention is laying out its case. All of its speakers had a similar theme. Be scared. Brown people will kill you. Foreigners will kill you. Are you scared? Good, vote for Donald Trump.

Oh, and did you see U.S. Rep. Steve King – major Trump supporter as well as major league bigot (though those two go together almost without saying) – say with a straight face on MSNBC that white people have contributed more to civilization than any other race. Yes, HE SAID THAT.

Also, did you know the GOP adopted a platform that seeks to overturn marriage equality, pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, refuse adoptions to gay parents, supports gay conversion therapy for minors and police where trans people get to pee. Also, they could eliminate national parks and forests altogether and calls porn (not global warming, which they think is a hoax) a public health crisis. So, yeah, this is your party, GOP. You earned this.

By contrast, the Democratic party platform reiterates its support for marriage equality, vows to fight for comprehensive federal nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, continues to push back against bullying and protects trans people from violence. Also, they believe climate change is real.

So, you know, tell me again how Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same. Jesus, there are three more days of this fucking convention. I definitely need more wine.

p.s. Did you hear there was also a Rickroll in Melania’s speech? I mean, really. What if this all turns out to be some next-level Andy Kaufman shit? At this point, that is the only explanation that makes sense – besides blind incompetence and unabashed racism, of course.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So my ancient cousin in England (so old I call him "Uncle". Seriously. 84) emailed me and said, "I think you're just-just old enough to remember when the phrase "Only in America" was used to indicate something marvelous, something that could happen nowhere else. Now we're saying, "Only in America" in re: Trump and other things that are not marvelous, at all."

And dear Americans, this is not an isolated sentiment/reaction: people are saying that here in South Africa, too.

If y'all don't vote for Hillary, we're ALL gonna be kissing Trump's ass for at least 4 years. If you know any Trump supporters, instead of running away screaming, just be civil and ask nicely if they could possibly find it in their hearts to vote with their HEADS. You never know. You might just remind some of those people that they're a whole lot smarter than Trump hopes they are.

--NM

Selket said...

From outside the States it looks pretty damn dangerous. I live in Latin America (far away to the south, no intentions to cross the broder), and I cannot imagine the level of caos that someone like Trump can bring into international politics. It really scares me to death to think about it.
Hope the reason will prevale in the end.

Carmen SanDiego said...

Never thought I'd see someone making George W bush look good but Trump did it

Jody said...

My lovely girlfriend is convinced that Bill & Hillary convinced Trump to run and be as outrageous as possible. Her thought is that no one could be that big of an asshole so it must be a set-up.

Anonymous said...

I still feel like maybe I'm going to wake up from this terrible Trump nightmare any day now... I don't even want to think about the possibility of Hillary losing to such a terrible bigoted ass hat. I have to be honest it's incredibly disheartening to realize that there are still so many small minded bigots in the U.S., as you'd have to be to support Trump. Even my super conservative stuck in the 50s parents don't like the guy and aren't voting for him...so how has this happened?!?!