Sure, Trump’s Speech Was Dark. America’s in a Dark Place Right Now.

July 22, 2016

Sure, Trump's Speech Was Dark. America's in a Dark Place Right Now.

Yes, it was way too long. Yes, he shouted almost the entire speech. Yes, it was almost entirely devoid of Trump's usual humor. But the dark portrait of America in Trump's speech was an argument: an argument that the state of the country has gone terribly wrong, and that the status quo must change. It is simple and largely accurate; soon we'll see if the public agrees Trump is the man who can change the country for the better.

There has been a lot of griping that this year's convention was way too dark and negative. I wonder if the media voices making that complaint noticed the latest numbers from Gallup:

Americans' satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. dropped 12 percentage points in the past month, amid high-profile police killings of black men and mass shootings of police. Currently, 17% of Americans are satisfied with the state of affairs in the U.S . . .

For the past two years, satisfaction has been in the 20s and 30s, with low points of 20% in December 2015 and November 2014.

This 12-point drop in one month is tied for the largest decrease in satisfaction since Gallup started asking satisfaction monthly in 2001. The previous largest decrease during this period was also 12 points in October 2008, as the financial crisis was taking hold.

We can argue whether this moment is as chaotic as 1968, or the days of Watergate, or the wartimes of World War II or the Great Depression or the Civil War. But it's pretty bad. For about a two-week span before the convention, it felt like each day's news featured some maniac shooting at a cop or a terrible terror attack in Europe. Recall my "Feeling Yeats-y" Corner post from July 14.

Americans have good reason to feel dissatisfied with the state of the country. There are a lot of causes for the country's problems, but a significant portion of the responsibility lands at the feet of President Barack Obama, who promised "hope and change" eight years ago and delivered the latter while stomping on the former.

Even aside from raw racial tensions, outrageous attacks on police, and awful terrorist attacks, most Americans now know they've been sold a false bill of goods. The public now knows Obama's promises, from "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" to the red line in Syria mean nothing.

President Obama has been telling the public things are getting better since "Recovery Summer" in 2010, but a lot of Americans just aren't feeling it. It's not surprising the president genuinely thinks America is doing pretty well; he lives a life among celebrities and big-dollar fundraisers and sees smiling faces everywhere he goes. He'll never worry about having enough money or being a victim of a crime again. The ordinary concerns of Americans — what if the car needs major repairs, what if I get laid off, how am I going to cover this new higher monthly premium for health insurance, is that parking lot safe at night if I work late — never cross the mind of Obama, or the vast majority of political elites.

The pivotal question about Donald Trump's speech is, do the viewers at home listen to his description of the country's problems — lawlessness, a growing terrorist threat on our own soil, illegal immigration, a fear that their job could be outsourced overseas — and say, "Yes, finally, this man gets it"? Or does Trump's style get in the way of his powerful message?

Trump's Safe Choice

Hey, remember Ted Cruz?

I urged Trump to be magnanimous, but not mentioning Cruz was almost as good. The focus will be on Trump's argument about the state of the country, not whether or not he can win over the Texas senator.

Can Anybody Say 'No' to the Leader at the Top?

I'm sure Tom Barrack is a nice man. He was the third-to-last speaker of the Republican convention, one of Donald Trump's best friends, who introduced Ivanka Trump, who introduced her father.

Barrack's 13 minutes of prime time air time were far from the worst moments of the convention. But as I noted on Twitter, he seemed like your dad's friend from work who comes over to dinner and tells stories that bore you, but you know it would be rude to show it.

He began by comparing himself to "the anchovies in Ivanka's Caesar salad." He moved to a cute joke about his uncle in Lebanon saying he's like the deceased at an Irish wake: "You need to be there to get things started, but nobody expects you to say too much."

What followed were twelve minutes of meandering, rambling oratory that weren't bad, just not particularly . . . clear what the point was, or how it would persuade anyone at home to vote for Donald Trump. He shared a story of a deal with Trump on a hotel in the 1980s where Trump "played me like a Steinway piano," and how he made Barrack purchase a piano for a "little rent controlled tenant named Fannie Lowenstein, the smartest woman in the world, 83 years old." He told us Trump believes that "punctuality is the courtesy of kings" and how he "befriends the bewildered."

He said Trump does things with "the discipline of an animal in the jungle. His motto is a lion wakes up in the morning and knows one thing: that it has to run faster than the fastest gazelle. And a gazelle wakes up and she knows she has to run faster than the fastest lion. But whether you're a lion or a gazelle, you wake up in the morning and you get the hell going. And that's Donald." And then Barrack described joining Trump in attending a Mike Tyson fight in Atlantic City, and that evening, Trump signed a program for a doorman he knew named Louie whose son was critically ill, telling the boy his father was a champion.

Barrack did not use a teleprompter, and by that standard, his off-the-cuff remarks were pretty good. But perhaps a prepared text might have helped make his points clearer.

As Ramesh observed, "Rich people — left, right, center — think what they have to say is interesting because they get used to people treating them that way."

This reflects something with Trump's one hour and fifteen minute speech, the longest acceptance speech since 1972. There has to be somebody around the candidate and a president who can say, "You know, this is really not a good idea," and the leader needs to be able to listen and heed their warnings when needed.

The Intriguing Peter Thiel and 'Fake Culture Wars'

Jeremy Carl examines the convention's most unlikely and probably most optimistic speaker:

One of the most surprising and biggest coups (at least from the perspective of a Silicon Valley resident) was Peter Thiel. While the private Thiel is not a national celebrity, in the Valley Thiel is a legend, so much so that he has been able to be that rare conservative major figure in Silicon Valley who defies the Democratic party orthodoxy.

As one of the founders of and PayPal and Palantir Technologies and the first investor in Facebook, (all of which are valued at multi-billion dollars) he's one of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley. Beyond that, he's seen as one of the valley's top visionaries. Billionaires (of which Thiel is one) are a dime a dozen in the valley.

But true visionaries are a far rarer thing and when Thiel speaks the valley listens. Thiel had been a major supporter of both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and it was something of a parlor game among Valley conservatives which one he would sign up with. But Thiel surprised everyone by saying on the sidelines, only to eventually sign up with Trump as a delegate and then a convention speaker.

I love Thiel's argument that Americans should not get sucked into "fake culture wars."

The only problem is that it's always the other guy's favorite issue that represents a "fake culture war"; my favorite issue is a genuine measure of our national values. This is similar to how the federal project in the other district represents wasteful pork-barrel spending, while the projects in my district represent vital, needed investments in our future.

ADDENDA: Kudos to Cleveland. This week featured almost no violence, surprisingly few arrests by a thoroughly professional police force assembled from both locals and visitors from forces around the country. The city hosted a remarkably smooth, well-run convention, staffed by extremely warm and friendly locals.

And remember how the open-carry laws represented this giant threat to public safety? Yeah, nothing happened.