Conventional dissonance: The Hindu Editorial on Donald Trump nomination at Republican National Convention

There are few events in U.S. election politics that offer a more predictable denouement than the National Conventions of the two major parties, given that the presidential and vice-presidential tickets for both are known beforehand. The Convention culminated with Mr. Trump’s address in which he appeared to fall back upon the same lines of political attack that he employed against former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, only this time against Democratic nominee and former Vice-President Joe Biden. In doing so, Mr. Trump conjured up, once again, the spectres of socialism and globalisation that threatened to creep upon the U.S. economy should Mr. Biden prevail in the 2020 election, warning that the latter was the “destroyer of America’s jobs… took the donations of blue-collar workers… voted to ship their jobs to China and many other distant lands”. Nothing could undermine that assertion more than the fact that unemployment rates are still high, and that during the time of the Convention, more than 3,600 people succumbed to COVID-19 in the U.S. As disturbing as the false claims made about the economy and the pandemic were, more deleterious for the future of U.S. societal harmony was the strident note that the President struck regarding racial tensions that have flared up across the country following several deaths of unarmed African-Americans at the hands of armed police. Little wonder that police brutality of the kind that was inflicted upon Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has continued to foment anger in the streets of that city, and that Mr. Trump’s regular allusions to “mob rule” by “thugs” associated with the Democratic Party is likely costing him what little support he might enjoy with minorities of all hues.