We have to wait four years to get one week of some honesty on TV networks in prime time. There is no other time during those 48 months when the mainstream television media give the Republican voice its say. So enjoy it because, almost like a comet, it just has arrived and soon will be gone for its next quadrennial appearance.
But that is what it is. Those networks — CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC — will not give the Republican agenda or conservative perspectives any meaningful coverage, but they do give over two hours nightly for four days of the Republican presidential convention. Although the networks’ talking heads soon enough disparage everything that has transpired, they do allow the words to be spoken unfiltered for those precious two prime-time hours. That provides the rare opportunity for any fair-minded American who is open to something different from the usual pap to listen in and hear thoughts never otherwise conveyed.
On the first night of the GOP convention, Americans saw a moving short video compiling scenes of President Trump making promises, followed by scenes that depict how he ultimately kept those promises. Promises Made. Promises Kept. You don’t see or hear that on TV the other 47 months and three weeks of the Quadrennium.
Americans saw Amy Ford, a West Virginia COVID-relief registered nurse who helped with coronavirus patient overloads in New York and Texas, thanking President Trump for instituting major policy changes and pouring in federal assistance to fight COVID-19. “Donald Trump’s quick action and leadership saved thousands of lives,” she said. You don’t hear that the other 47 months.
After a week of Democrat hacks blaming President Trump for the virus, we were reminded on Monday night that the Word Health Organization had gotten it all wrong, initially reporting that humans could not transmit the disease to other humans. We were reminded that, with coronavirus beginning to imperil our nation, Nancy Pelosi was urging people to ignore the dangers and to travel to Chinatown. That Joe Biden called it “xenophobia” when President Trump rapidly restricted visitors from flying in from China and parts of Europe. We were reminded how miserably New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio had done. By contrast, President Trump had implemented the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and Operation Warp Speed. You don’t hear that the other 47 months.
You may have needed to adjust the picture on your television sets during the convention’s first nights because we saw and heard from a number of Americans who appeared to be people of color, specifically Black, but according to the racist Joe Biden they must have been White. Joe Biden had said, “Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” But football legend Herschel Walker was there, endorsing and speaking for Trump. So was Vernon Jones, an elected state representative in the Georgia State Assembly, a Black Democrat voting for Trump. He said that the Democrat Party “doesn’t want Black people to leave the mental plantation,” and he sneered at Pelosi and Schumer for pandering to Blacks, as the two Democrat leaders paraded around the U.S. capitol with kente cloths. There was Kimberly Klacik, running for Congress in Maryland’s 7th Congressional District. There was United States Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina. They all were exuberant in endorsing Trump. And, at least to the naked eye, they seemed Black.
On the other hand, Biden had said quite emphatically that, if you do not support Biden over Trump, then “you ain’t Black.” All of last week we were told that Biden is a man of character. Biden would never lie. Except as to his biography. And about his miserable grades in school. And about educational degrees he never actually received. And about his class ranking in law school. And that crazy phony story about risking his life to pin a medal on a guy in Afghanistan. And apparently how he met Jill, who apparently was married when he became amorous with her. But other than 20 or 30 or so times he was caught falsifying in public, basically Biden would never lie — except when he does. So, with his “you ain’t Black” credo, is the public to infer that all those prominent Black figures who endorsed Trump on Monday night really were White? Well, OK, maybe the cameras were off. But then that would mean that all the White people endorsing Trump on the screen the rest of the night really were Black.
A puzzlement.
There was Natalie Harp, a bone cancer survivor, who had been encouraged by medical personnel to kill herself, to agree to assisted suicide, so that by getting out of the way and dying early she could help society preserve resources for others. (Obama Death Squads? What Death Squads?) And yet President Trump, by his “Right to Try” initiative, had made it possible for Ms. Harp to access some newer medicines. And now, instead of being dead, she was at the Republican convention speaking energetically for President Trump. You don’t hear about that on the other 47 months.
After a week of Democrat lies about a president who “does not take the job seriously,” “does not care about people except his friends,” and does not take medical issues seriously, we were reminded of President Trump’s leadership roles in fighting the opioid epidemic, working to increase kidney patients’ access to life-saving care, increasing accountability at VA hospitals, working for transparency to control pricing on pharmaceuticals like insulin, and freeing Americans from Obamacare’s individual mandate. We were reminded that, under Obama and Biden, China enjoyed almost complete control over the production of pharmaceuticals we need. That if Biden ever gets in and the Democrats implement their socialized medicine proposals, “You don’t beat the odds — you become the odds.” You don’t hear that the other 47 months.
And so the excellent night went. Speakers reminded us that the Democrats now are so extreme that they advocate defunding the police. “Isn’t it ironic,” Vernon Jones asked, “that Democrat leaders have personal security to protect them? So why don’t they forgo their security and replace them with social workers, especially since that’s what they want for you and me?” You sure don’t hear that on prime time the other 47 months.
Black speakers continued praising the president’s support for their communities. He gave historic funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and guaranteed that funding long-term. By contrast, under Obama and Biden, the HBCUs had to return to Washington, hat in hand, every year to beg for renewed funding. In addition, Black speakers praised the president for supporting school choice to allow parents, particularly in inner cities where failed public schools are all too common, to opt out of bad local schools so that their children can get the same quality of education that children of wealthier families, like the Obamas, get. Moreover, the president also built the most inclusive economy, with record-high Black job participation and record-low unemployment. And the president reversed Joe Biden’s legislation that incarcerated more young Black males, as Trump introduced historic crime reform.
With so many Blacks endorsing Trump on Monday night and pointing to his long list of achievements for their community, in sharp contrast to Biden’s 47 years in Washington with no tangible results to show despite all his promises and half-century of bluster, it must have been a confusing night for Biden. So all of those Trump backers “ain’t Black?” But they clearly ain’t White. Where does that leave them? Tough for Biden to sort out.
Next came Andrew Pollack, father of Meadow, his daughter who had been murdered by that “scumbag” — Mr. Pollack’s accurate term — at the Parkland school shooting in Florida. Biden had said it had occurred when he was vice president. Mr. Pollack reminded us that it happened February 2018, and Biden was not in office. Trump was, and the president invited Mr. Pollack and other victims’ family members to the White House, not for a “photo op” but for an intense discussion to grasp the issues and get to the core of the matter of school violence. Pollack described the president as a good man and a great listener. Pollack was straightforward: “He formed a school safety commission … But I’ll bet you never heard about that. Instead, the media turned my daughter’s murder into a coordinated attack on President Trump.” At the presidential press conference aimed at amplifying on what had been discussed and learned about Parkland, Pollack remembered, the media’s first question was not about protecting kids but about a government shutdown.
Pollack was not finished. It emerges that the gunman who committed the mass murder had threatened previously to kill kids at the school, to rape them, to shoot them. In other words, the authorities had been warned about this “scumbag.” (Pollack’s word.) But the Democrats had implemented a typical progressive program called “Restorative Justice,” which blames teachers for students’ failures, thereby putting the kids and their teachers at risk. Pollack praised President Trump for shifting public policy the other way, focusing on “Discipline and Safety.” Biden has promised to bring back Restorative Justice. You sure don’t hear that perspective on Parkland and on school shootings on prime-time TV the other 47 months.
Next came Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the married couple in St. Louis who had to stand in front of their home, brandishing their firearms, to scare off rioters and threatening anarchists away from their homestead. The media had conveyed that the McCloskeys are right-wing extremists, borderline neo-Nazis. It turns out that they are perfectly upright citizens. In fact, they both practice law. In the end, it was not the rioters but they whom the city’s extreme-left Democrats charged with felonies while a Marxist activist stood outside their home with a bullhorn, yelling, “You can’t stop our Revolution.” You don’t hear that on the mainstream media networks the other 47 months.
And so it went throughout the night. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Latina, great words but much too loud, which was surprising because she has tons of TV experience. Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot and almost killed by a Bernie Sanders supporter. You don’t hear that the other 47 months. Scalise shared a moving story of how the president had consoled a family, Scalise’s relatives, after a loss. You don’t hear about Trump’s humanity and compassion the other 47 months either. Scalise was followed by Rep. Sean Parnell of Pennsylvania, who spoke of fighting in Afghanistan and about a terrible battle where his unit was outnumbered by 10 to 1 yet held the hill even as he was injured three times in the fighting. “I saw ordinary Americans become heroes,” he said. “We all bleed red…. United we were unbeatable.” And then, after 485 days, Sean Parnell came home and watched as Biden “spit venom” at an auto worker who asked him about gun rights.
This soon was followed by a segment that focused on a lesser-known, ongoing Trump achievement: bringing home American hostages locked away in foreign prisons. In three years the president has brought home over 50 hostages from 22 countries, including North Korea, Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela, India, Syria, and Iran. We saw six of them sit with the president in the White House, each serially thanking him for the freedom he brought. You don’t see or hear that on the news the other 47 months.
Next, a deeply moving speech by Maximo Alvarez, an American who had come here from Castro Cuba, who has a business called Sunshine Gasoline Distributors. Mr. Alvarez’s speech was filled with manifest emotion, as he tried to educate viewers that the Democrats’ socialist agenda is not new or “progressive.” Rather, he has heard it before, seen it before, and lived it before under Castro. “I’ve seen people like this before. I’ve seen movements like this before…. I heard the promises of Fidel Castro.” And the people of Cuba swallowed the communist poison pill: Spread the wealth. Defund the police. Free education. Free health care. “They sound familiar. When Fidel Castro was asked if he was a communist, he said he was a Roman Catholic. He knew he had to hide the truth…. When I hear the promises, I hear echoes of a former life I never wanted to hear again…. I choose President Trump because I choose America. I choose freedom.” You don’t see or hear that on the news the other 47 months.
The evening ends with three excellent speeches by three prominent cogs in today’s Republican Party: Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s first UN ambassador; Donald Trump Jr., who referred to Biden as the Loch Ness Monster of the Swamp; and a rousing tour-de-force keynote by Sen. Tim Scott. Haley noted that Joe Biden and the Democrats always blame America first, while Trump puts America first. Haley, as much a woman of color as Kamala Harris, only far more accomplished, emphatically stated that Political Correctness and Cancel Culture are plain wrong, and she challenged those who perpetuate the lie that American society is racist. She reminded us that her father wore a turban, her mother a sari, yet he taught 30 years at an Historically Black College while the mother started her own business. Haley rose to be a governor and, as noted, a UN ambassador.
Sen. Tim Scott brought it all home in a ringing and inspiring keynote that ended the night. The speech was so good that it was worth waiting four years for it, and it will resonate these next four years. That is the most conservatives can ask for from a biased left-wing media, one week where our side gets heard every four years.
