Outside observers at the Republican National Convention in 1980 found the very visible, far right and conspiratorial elements of it "scary." Many journalists wondered to each other, as they listened to the crowd sing God Bless America, "if they believe this is our country too."
The 2024 RNC this week will feature a parade of theocrats, conspiracy theorists, quasi-fascists, and con men. I'm writing about one such person who fits all of those bills, Walter Huss of Oregon, who was a very eager **Reagan delegate in 1980.** North Adams [MA} Transcript, 1 August 1980.
According to NBC News this is a draft of the 2024 GOP platform that's been released by the Trump campaign. It's basically a Trump rally speech turned into an all caps list of vague promises. The connecting glue of the statement is "we are the real Americans, our enemies are not."
One of the more bizarre and notable features of that "platform" is that it makes exactly zero mention of one of the GOP's main selling points to its voters and one of Trump's greatest successes as President--the restriction of access to abortion. This is because they know it's unpopular.
Imagine being a political party that for 30+ years has promised your supporters that one of you TOP priorities is limiting access to abortion care. And then you achieve a historic victory by overturning Roe v. Wade. And then in your next platform you act as if that issue doesn't even exist.
This is not only a party that has zero interest in speaking to and for the entire country...it's a party that is so nervous about it being seen for what it is that it has to pretend that one of its greatest historical achievement in decades didn't happen.
The most charitable interpretation is that they think they have solved the issue by getting Dobbs decided, so they don't need to talk about it. (I am not interested in being charitable to the GOP, but I would not be surprised if that's the approach they take if questioned on it.)
Yes, this is totally how they will try to spin it, even though GOP legislators in virtually every state are hard at work crafting creative legislation to make abortion less accessible in a post-Dobbs world. So it's not like the GOP isn't still hard at work at this, they just don't want us to see it.
They don’t think they solved it; they’ll push for a nationwide ban if they control Congress. They aren’t talking about it because they know it’s unpopular and they know their candidate can’t win a majority of the vote, so being vague works to their advantage.
Cue the chorus of "It's settled law!"
Yep. That should do it.
The 1850's were littered with legislation that once-and-for-all removed slavery as a contentious public issue, culminating with Dred Scot v. Sanford.
After which the issue went away. And we all Got Past It.
Not sure. I don't recall that being high on the previous wish list either. I suspect that some answers might emerge if one dug into which defense contracting companies have made large donations to Trump's campaign recently.
Iron Dome evokes a very specific context and use case, though. Unless the Quebecois are going to start firing short range missiles into Vermont, or Tijuana terrorist cells are going to attack San Diego, it's just a bad analogy. It feels more like a really weird shout out to Bibi or something.
But I am probably giving the chuckleheads who wrote this too much credit when I think they would understand the difference between Iron Dome and Star Wars, the old pie in the sky idea of ICBM-killing satellites. But I would assume that if there is a defense contractor involved, they know.
Well, as we’ve seen recently, those French speakers lack the proper degree of respect for great nationalists like Trump and need to be watched like hawks.
Kinda like the 2020 Republican platform.
I did find it interesting that the RNC this year wasn't going to open up their platform committee debate to the public. The head of the RNC 2024 platform committee, Ed Martin, is a real nut and at one point I think ran the right wing Eagle Forum.
Another thing about the RNC 1980 convention is how they successfully co-opted words like freedom, family, and pro-life, and demonized the term liberal.
