Ross: A convention finale like nothing anybody’s ever seen
Aug 28, 2020, 6:15 AM
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the South Lawn of the White House August 27, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump gave the speech in front of 1,500 invited guests. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
I want to give credit to the New York Times for its surgical fact-checking of the President’s speech in real time. They found several things that were true, but it was tough to follow because political speeches aren’t about facts.
They’re about patriotism and how America can do anything, and how nothing’s impossible (except perhaps a bi-partisan highway bill).
And then if you’re a Democrat, you declare that we are better than our racist past. And if you’re a Republican, you salute the brave pioneers who tamed a wild land armed only with their Bibles.
But if you’re Donald Trump … you leverage the limits of the pandemic to put on a convention finale like nothing anybody’s ever seen before in the history of seeing things before, by far.
You accept the nomination on the south porch of the White House flanked by uncountable flags, before the biggest live audience anybody’s seen in six months, with a fireworks spectacle that twice spelled out “Trump 2020” over the Washington monument, and a tenor on the balcony singing Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, the Ave Maria, and finally God Bless America and America the Beautiful with the audience, not only unmasked, but SINGING along.
It wasn’t just a candidate accepting a nomination, it was Donald J. Trump telling Joe Biden, Dr. Fauci, and the ghost of P.T. Barnum … just you try to top that!
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
