The Republican National Convention is underway this week and just like last week’s Democratic National Convention, it is greatly scaled down and largely “virtual.”
The Republicans got the main business out of the way Monday night by formally re-nominating Donald Trump for president and Mike Pence for vice president. The agenda for last night and tonight consists of speeches in support of a Trump second term. Tomorrow night President Trump will give his acceptance speech.
Last night’s headliners included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and First Lady Melania Trump. But the warm-up acts stole last night’s show.
Let’s start with Mark McCloskey. Mr. McCloskey and his wife Patricia live in St. Louis. This past June, Black Lives Matter protesters broke down the gate to the entrance of the private community in which the McCloskeys live. The McCloskeys stood on their front porch holding weapons and demanding that the protesters get off private property. The McCloskeys were indicted by the St. Louis chief prosecutor for unlawful use of a weapon. Here is what Mark McCloskey said last night:
Whether it’s the defunding of police, ending cash bail so criminals can be released back out on the streets the same day to riot again, or encouraging anarchy and chaos on our streets, it seems as if the Democrats no longer view the government’s job as protecting honest citizens from criminals, but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens.”
Then there was Nicholas Sandmann, the student from Covington High School in Park Hills, Kentucky who was vilified by the media in January 2019 following an incident involving a Native American group on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Using only video obtained via social media, major news outlets characterized Sandmann as a racist. Sandmann sued the Washington Post, CNN and NBC for defamation. Two of the suits have been settled for undisclosed amounts. Said Sandmann last night:
I believe we must join a president who will challenge the media to return to objective journalism. And together, I believe we must all embrace our first amendment rights and not hide in fear of the media or from the tech companies or from the outraged mob either.”
But perhaps the most compelling of the non-headliner speakers last night was former Planned Parenthood employee Abby Johnson. Ms. Johnson is now a pro-life activist. Her speech included this:
Later in August, my supervisor assigned me a new quota to meet – an abortion quota. I was expected to sell double the abortions performed the previous year. When I pushed back, underscoring Planned Parenthood’s public facing goal of decreasing abortions, I was reprimanded and told, ‘abortion is how we make our money.’”
Ms. Johnson went on to describe, in rather graphic detail, the actual experience of watching on ultrasound as a baby is aborted.
People like the McCloskeys and Nick Sandmann and Abby Johnson aren’t celebrities and are not among the elite. They are rather ordinary looking, have never been on a red carpet and have never been on a private jet. All likely to their credit for voters in places like Wisconsin and central Pennsylvania.