Joe Biden’s convention keynote speech impressed everyone, even pundits who oppose him. Yes, that even includes Fox News hosts. Chris Wallace said “it was an enormously effective speech”). Dana Perino was even more effusive, saying “[Biden] just hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth”. Even Laura Ingraham — one of Trump’s strongest supporters at Fox — told Trump Jr. “He did beat expectations, Don. I mean, people were expecting him to flub every line and have a senior moment,” which surprised the younger Trump enough he abruptly stopped smiling.
Before and after:
Karl Rove, the architect of Dubya’s two election victories, said “it was a very good speech” and that he’d be worried if he were a GOP strategist working on this year’s presidential campaign. The speech even got positive reviews from the Drudge Report, who ran with the headline “Biden Barn Burner” saying “Joe wows critics” and linking to commentary that he “crushed expectations”.
I think it is safe to say that Donald Trump also knew it was a great speech, because it (almost) shut him up. For his only tweet, Trump stopped using ALL CAPS and posted while Biden was still speaking, which probably means he couldn’t bring himself to finish listening to it. Remember also that Trump typically accuses others of the very things which he himself is terribly guilty (this will be even more significant when you watch the short video at the end of this post).
As another sign of his panic, Trump is now obsessing about next week’s Republican convention, which still doesn’t have much of a speaker’s list. Maybe he believes he should be the only speaker?
My favorite response came from the people who run The Bulwark, a news and opinion site founded by anti-Trump conservatives. They didn’t just praise Biden’s speech:
I wanted to share one thing that we discussed after the show was over. Both of us we were caught off guard by how emotionally attached we were last night to this candidacy. We had sort of expected to feel this reluctant, begrudging support for the Democratic nominee, to have been left in a tough spot between one normal bad choice and one existentially bad one. But that isn’t what happened. Joe Biden has me energized. And frankly, that he has both Charlie and I reflecting on whether maybe in the past we were just…in the wrong…
Trump does have a serious problem. Chris Wallace said “Remember Donald Trump has been talking for months about Joe Biden as mentally shot, a captive from the left.” But Wallace concluded “[Biden] blew a hole — a big hole in that characterization.” If Trump can’t demonize Biden as old and feeble, or a socialist puppet, what can he run on? The economy, which is now in the toilet with no chance of it recovering before the election? Even worse, if Trump loses the right-wing media, he will probably also lose his GOP enablers (who will then no longer fear him).
Here’s stunning proof, which you have to watch:
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What is interesting to me about the picture on the right of the convention parking lot is that I grew up in Wilmington. The head of the Delaware Democratic committee Erik Schramm was in that parking lot. He has put many pictures up on Facebook. His first home as a newborn was on this block in Western New York. Until he married and moved to Delaware, he lived here.
My high school is where Kamala Harris was named as VP. which is right down the road from where Jill and joe live now…….and where I lived on the same block from 8-19. Before that I lived in Hockessin where Chris Coons and his family lives. I feel very wrapped up in all this.
I must say that I wonder how Don Jr.can say that Trump was lying when he said “There are very fine people on both sides” when it is on tape.
The last bit with the various righties saying such nasty things about Dear Leader leads one to think, though, that they may think he’s all of the things they describe him as, but also that he’s a means to an end that they favor. Perhaps instead of them being Dear Leader enablers, tRump is actually enabling all of them to move the country where they want it to go and they are using him as a tool and cover.
The only “end” they favor is to keep their jobs. They are afraid of crossing Trump and then losing their primary.
Unless of course if you think they like racism, sexism, corruption, cronyism, and a pathetic response to the coronavirus that is killing people.