I watched most of night three of the Republican Convention last night; in general, I thought it was terrific. The most powerful moments, as Scott wrote earlier, were provided by the Gold Star families of the service members who were killed in the terrorist attack in Afghanistan. These are among those Joe Biden pretended to forget when he said, to his everlasting shame, that no military personnel lost their lives on his watch.
The rest of the night was good, too. David Bellavia, a Medal of Honor recipient and author of House to House, was excellent. Trump’s granddaughter, Kai Trump, did a nice turn, and Don Jr. fired up the crowd. Many people don’t realize how good Don Jr. is: for this kind of assignment there is hardly anyone better. And Usha Vance did a workmanlike job of introducing her husband.
But the intended highlight of the evening was D.J. Vance’s acceptance of the vice presidential nomination. For the most part, Vance was good. But at times, he veered into the over-the-top populism that worries some observers. Like me.
Thus, Vance took a needless swipe at the Iraq war, seeming to blame it on Joe Biden. (By the way, is George W. Bush at the convention? Not as far as I have seen.) He went full protectionist; at one point, he denounced the “cheap Chinese products” that had “flooded into the American market”–that would be the iPhone, for example–without acknowledging the benefit to American consumers. Embarrassing. And it sounded as though he wants to bring international trade to a halt. He denounced Wall Street and major corporations, and made a friendly nod to the unions.
I am OK with the GOP being the party of Donald Trump, but at times during Vance’s speech, it sounded like we are the party of Dick Gephardt.
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