I’m one of the few Americans who watched both the Democratic and the Republican National Conventions. I watched almost all of both of them—around seventeen hours in total! If you watched parts of one but not the other, I highly recommend balancing that out. (You can find them on YouTube.)
As a progressive, the DNC brought me hope, comfort, and affirmation. The RNC was far more challenging. But it was also far more educational!
I had four major take-aways from the RNC, and they came to me in the following order.
First, I felt anger. There were So. Many. Lies.
There were lies by omission. Trump is the “law and order” President who will protect your safety…except that he’s failed to protect your safety from COVID-19, or your safety if you’re a peaceful protester, or your safety if you’re a black American interacting with police.
Trump is “not racist,” when throughout the convention he and others called COVID-19 the “China virus.”
Trump is kind and compassionate?! Really? Maybe to his supporters, or when he’s in a good mood—but it’s laughable to downplay the vitriol he spews daily over Twitter and in press conferences.
Trump is “draining the swamp,” when a sizable swath of his former advisers are serving prison time!
Democrats are politically correct and like to shut down free thought, the Republicans routinely complained. What they omitted was the way every critique of the country, Trump, or the Republican Party gets labeled unpatriotic or “fake news,” as well as Trump’s habit of firing people for not toeing the party line. In reality, illiberalism has arisen in both parties, not just one.
(I know I’m being pretty negative here. I’ll move on soon, I promise. But there’s still a bit more to be angry about…)
Then there were the more blatant lies. Lies about Trump’s supposed coordination of a successful federal response to COVID-19. In fact, we’ve had one of the worst responses in the world to the disease and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths because of a lack of a coordinated federal response.
There were lies about Joe Biden’s statements and beliefs—that he wants to defund or even abolish the police, when in reality he has clearly stated that he does not. Or lies that he has failed to condemn protest violence, when he has repeatedly condemned it, for instance here (May 31), here (June 2) and here (August 26).
Or that Democrats are socialists, when what most of us really want—even “socialist” Bernie and AOC—is more regulated capitalism.
I quickly grew sick of all this falsehood and straw-man fearmongering. This is going to be a looong conference, I thought. After a while, whenever someone started talking about rioting, police, or socialism, I skipped ahead in their talk. Enough was enough!
But my anger wasn’t only directed at the Republicans.
My second reaction to the RNC was anger, too—but anger at the far left.
I felt angry at my well-meaning comrades for giving the right such perfect openings. Once again, the left’s bad messaging is making it possible that we might lose this election.
Biden may not be for defunding the police, but “Defund” is a rallying cry for police reform. The Republicans are right about that. The RNC added to my growing conviction that this is a terrible rallying cry. Most people in the Defund movement don’t even want police abolishment. They want a reduction in police forces, a reallocation of funds to social services. “Defund” implies a stripping of funds altogether. Why call it that?! The word is misleading.
Similarly, I felt angry at Bernie and AOC for calling themselves socialists. They are not socialists! They are social democrats who want systems like those in Nordic countries. Nordic countries are capitalist, which is why successful companies like IKEA can thrive there. They just have different tax structures and enormous social safety nets, leading to the highest quality of life and the happiest citizens in the world. That’s what progressives want, too.
But the Nordic countries don’t call themselves socialist, because they aren’t socialist. By attaching this word to themselves, Bernie and AOC conjure images of Venezuela and Soviet Russia in the minds of many Americans. Why do that? Why just throw away all those votes?!
Then there’s the rioting. Republicans are wrong that Biden has been silent about it, but they’re right that many on the left have been silent. Watching the RNC strengthened the conviction I gently expressed last week: we on the left must speak out against the violence and vandalism in places like Portland. We must urge our elected leaders to end it. Silence on this issue is a colossal strategic blunder.
It’s misguided to think that speaking against vandalism and violence is some sort of betrayal of people of color. The RNC made me think that if anything, the real betrayal is happening on the far left. Failing to discern between protest and violence, and using terminology guaranteed to lose you support, only assures that you will alienate voters. How can that possibly help racial justice?
Supporting a cause has to include helping it be effective. Otherwise, it’s all just wasted effort.
And so, for the first hour or so of the RNC, I felt mired in all this anger towards both Republicans and the far left. My anger sat in my stomach like a heavy gray stone. I did a lot of deep breathing. How would I be able to get through much of the convention at all? I wondered.
But then another emotion emerged, my third response. It was a softening.
In between the fiery, angry speakers, there were a lot of other speakers. They were people who owned small businesses. They were veterans, police officers, people of color, women. They spoke about traditional Republican values and vouched for the party.
I thought the RNC was strongest when it moved away from fearmongering and told more positive stories. As the hours passed and I listened to these people, there were a number of little moments in which they genuinely touched me.
I was especially struck by the number of black people who spoke. Several talked about freedom of thought, and their annoyance that black Americans are expected to be Democrats. I wondered how unusual they were. Had the RNC managed to find every single black Republican for this event?
FiveThirtyEight says 25% of black people identify as conservative and 43% identify as moderate, even though 89% of black voters voted against Trump in 2016. The article points to research indicating that black Americans feel pressure from each other to be Democrats—indeed, the black speakers at the RNC faced major pushback and got called “Uncle Toms.” This is exactly the kind of pressure they were describing in their speeches.
It makes sense to me that a significant number of people in any racial group would be conservative. I believe all humans are naturally distributed along a liberal-conservative spectrum, regardless of race. Presumably, conservative black Americans usually vote Democrat because they believe the party does more for them than Republicans do, not because they agree with the Dems on every issue.
But the black speakers at the RNC argued that Trump has done more for black America than the Democrats have done in recent years. Speakers (both black and white) talked of two concrete achievements of Trump’s along these lines. In 2018, he signed a criminal justice reform bill that had met widespread bipartisan support, reducing sentencing for federal inmates affected by the War on Drugs. He also signed a bill securing millions of dollars in permanent funding for historically black colleges and universities.
These are both commendable achievements. I hadn’t heard of either of them.
I didn’t even believe them at first. When I looked them up and saw that they were real, it added to the softening I was gradually feeling.
Republicans weren’t lying about everything. Trump had done a few good things. I still think his authoritarian, bigoted tendencies and his shoddy relationship with the truth are dangerous and that he needs to be ousted. But learning of these achievements, I glimpsed the kernel of truth in the accusation that the media is too hard on him. I follow the news pretty closely, and I had missed these two positive achievements of his.
The most powerful moment of the convention, for me, was Eric Trump’s speech. Not the speech itself—I don’t remember anything he said, and don’t recall him being an inspiring speaker. But as he spoke, I was profoundly struck by a realization that made me feel ashamed: Although I had never seen him speak before, I did have a prior impression of him. It had come entirely from SNL’s portrayal of him as Don Jr.’s idiot brother.
For years, I had enjoyed the skits of Don Jr. and Eric, in which Eric dumbly mimics all Don Jr.’s gestures and plays with the children’s toys Don Jr. hands him. They’re hilarious skits!
But watching the real Eric talk, my heart sank. The real Eric is an articulate, highly competent person. He’s competent enough to deliver a strong speech on national TV. I never knew this about him.
Suddenly I saw the mean-spiritedness of those SNL skits. Perhaps Eric is a terrible person and has stood for terrible things. But has he? I honestly have no idea. And that’s the problem: without knowing anything about him, I had long enjoyed making fun of him, just because he was associated with his dad. And it hadn’t really ever occurred to me that he was out there somewhere, a real human being who may or may not be a good person.
SNL, Colbert, Trevor Noah, and other left-wing comedy shows have been a godsend in Trump’s presidency. Laughing about everything has helped me get through all the awfulness. But watching Eric speak left me subdued. What is the price of so much comedy that dehumanizes the other side?
And so, gradually over the course of the convention, I felt this softening towards Republicans. My anger intermittently returned, as well. But I had to admit there were ways I’d been ignorant about Trump’s achievements and family, and I came across other corrections in my thinking as well, although I can’t recall what they were.
I generally came away with a better understanding of the way Republicans think. It was easy for me to see their bad aspects, but over time I could more clearly see the good aspects of the party and its people as well, and the validity of a few of their concerns.
I also sensed, in some of the working-class speakers, a group of forgotten Americans. Trump has never been working-class, but he has tapped into an anger and frustration that has arisen in response to real social ills. Jobs have been lost to automation and global trade. An opioid epidemic has ravaged rural America. Many in the mainstream media use elitist language and focus only on coastal cities.
Democratic leaders say they care about rural America, and they might—Biden has a rural economic development plan. But among many of my educated, urban friends, I’ve heard a lot of disdain for rural and working-class people. Hillary’s casual mention of “deplorables” captured something.
I’ve never felt such disdain myself, but watching the RNC increased my sympathy for the people who are so often dismissed by folks on the left. Trump is their president. He understands them. I probably disagree with them on many issues, but I believe they must have some wisdom for the country. And I don’t want them to be forgotten.
After the softening came my fourth reaction: a renewed passion for civil discourse.
I came away from the RNC feeling more strongly than ever that Americans simply do not understand each other. We need to.
We are clearly afraid of each other. Both conventions told their viewers that the other candidate’s election would mean an existential threat to the country. We’ll either be lost to Trump’s authoritarianism or Biden’s socialism.
The RNC was full of falsehoods about the Dems, and I didn’t hear similar falsehoods in the DNC. I think the threat named in the DNC is real, while that named in the RNC is false.
But watching the RNC did make me discover misconceptions of my own about Republicans. I saw good people in both conventions. Some crazies too, especially in the RNC! 🙂 But also many people who had important or even inspiring things to say.
In general, what worries me most about Trump and his party is their willingness to present fiction as fact. Trump lies constantly. But the reason so many people believe his lies is that we are so polarized.
No one on either side trusts the other. We don’t trust each other’s news. That makes it incredibly difficult for ordinary people to figure out what’s really true. Most people don’t have time to check sources.
Until there’s more overlap, respect, listening, and compromise between the two parties, a huge swath of America will go on believing absurdities like climate change being a hoax or Biden being a socialist. If we on the left want Republicans to believe the facts we present to them, we need to respect them and listen to them more too.
And if Republicans want us to listen to the issues they care about most—the economy, abortion, gun rights, etc.—they should do more reaching out themselves.
So if you are interested in understanding the other side better, I recommend watching both the DNC and the RNC. Not the clips presented by your favorite news show or comedian. Not the sound bites quoted and lambasted by your friends. Not even the biggest, most headlined speeches.
Sit down with some popcorn, take some deep breaths, and watch an ordinary hour of the other side’s convention. Look for the kernels of truth in what they’re saying, and be sincere in your effort. Everyone has something important to say.
