RNC 2020: To Donald Trump and Republicans, America is a prop

If you were among the curiosity seekers who tuned in to the second night of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday hoping for a repeat of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s sternum-shaking fervor — and the humorous memes to match — you were likely disappointed. In fact, minus the now commonplace references to “radical left” boogeymen and a particularly lurid antiabortion speech from activist — and would-be women’s suffrage opponent — Abby Johnson, one might describe Night 2 of the Republican National Convention as a utopian vision of America, a place where the novel coronavirus was “successfully fought” and Congress “saved the economy” ; where overseas wars will soon come to an end ; where the president is an ardent feminist and the battle against “misinformation” is waged from the highest levels of government. Between those bookends, Trump and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf held a naturalization ceremony for five new American citizens; Vice President Mike Pence praised Abraham Lincoln just steps from the “Great Emancipator’s” frontier cabin; and conservative cause celebre Nicholas Sandmann inveighed against “cancel culture” before the Lincoln Memorial. The quadrennial conventions are, if not propaganda, then at least four-day advertorials for the two major political parties, so perhaps it should have been unsurprising that no one cared to mention the Trump administration’s attacks on the very system of legal immigration the evening proposed to celebrate — much less remind us of the existence of those children too busy being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border to hear about Mrs. Trump’s anti-bullying campaign, “Be Best.” And yet the almost impossibly craven sight of our national monuments, our better angels, turned into set dressing for the president’s divisive reelection strategy registered as a fresh norm broken, a new line crossed. One can roll one’s eyes at the female Trump officials discussing the president’s enlightenment about gender roles, only to elide his description of both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, as “nasty” women.