Strawmen and an empty chair
The RNC convention can most easily be described as a mixture of sophisticated technology and the time tested "strawman" rhetorical trick and instant revisionary history.
The show itself was very well conceived and produced. Like 2008 the visual imagery on stage was very well done and this time offered the option of several time-delayed but synchronized images to bring home the point.
But they spoke too.
The use of the "strawman" rhetorical trick is nothing new. W. Bush used it repeatedly in everything from stump speeches, to State of the Union addresses, to sending 4,474 Americans to their death in yet another needless war.
Examples:
Chris Christie
They said it was impossible to touch the third rail of politics. To take on the public sector unions and to reform a pension and health benefit system that was headed to bankruptcy.
Social Security is the third rail of politics
They believe that the American people don't want to hear the truth about the extent of our fiscal difficulties and need to be coddled by big government.
Who didn't put the WAR on the budget? What industries were built on government hand outs? What industries are sustained and enjoy impossible market advantages (corn) from government coddling?
They believe in pitting unions against teachers, educators against parents, and lobbyists against children.
Huh?
Paul Ryan
When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. That's what we do in this country. That's the American Dream. That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.
You KNEW you were going to college. You are 3 years younger than me - we were ALL going to college. We didn't even have to try. Of course you didn't think you were "stuck in some station" no one could possibly have thought that.
and then there is the empty chair....
I paused it as my wife and I watched it live. She was irate. It was totally disrespectful to the Office of the Presidency and to any adult. You don't berate another man (person), that shows a complete disrespect for him, yourself, and all people. THEN he twice went to the "go....yourself" bit. Simply put it was rude and crude.
During the pause I thought "this is funny it is like they are nominating an empty chair" or suit, which they have for three of the last four elections. Then I got it - the empty chair was the complete lack of any mention of George W. Bush. Their last President* and the basis of all their excuses and attacks while still going unmentioned.
Everything about the W years has direct facts that show incompetence and negligence. In fact, it was creative incompetence -they found new ways to screw up and to amplify their screw up....other than emptying the Treasury which was the only real accomplishment of that disasterous time.
The strawman that they were told to idolize knocked himself out of having a seat. They idolized an empty chair to fill the void.
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