Politics can be really disheartening at times, this feeling of losing spirit and hope reached its peak during the days of the Republican National Convention. It would be impossible to cover every ridiculous thing that happened, so I’m just going to talk about what we really stood out these last few days.
One republican who gave a speech Tuesday night at the RNC was none other than Chris Christie. His speech mostly consisted of slander on Hilary Clinton, continuously asking the crowd “Guilty or not guilty?" In which the crowd said guilty or broke out into chants saying “Lock her up”. I mean, why even bother discussing political issues when you can just discuss throwing your political opponents in prison? There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize Hillary Clinton on, but apparently just saying buzz words like “guilty” work fine so why bother? Irony appears at its finest here considering Christie was never charged for his own political scandal Bridge-gate. It is also pretty ironic when you account for the fact that less than a month ago it was discovered that he had a personal email account that he was using during Bridge-gate that was never seen by investigators.
Another issue that arose was the apparent offer Donald Trumps son made to John Kasich about being the most powerful Vice President in history. The offer as understood would be that Kasich would control domestic and foreign policies while Donald Trump would work on “Making America Great Again.” Obviously, Trump denies this, but considering Trumps long history of lying and hypocrisy I find it easily believable that he made the offer. Even if it's not true, it still shows the lack of unity in the republican party with Kasich and Trump feuding, combined with Ted Cruz’s refusal to support Donald Trump for president.
The most anticipated moment at the RNC for everyone was obviously going to be Trump's speech. Surprisingly he said nothing outlandish but there is one thing he said that stood out. He said was “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology” At surface value, it appears fine but once you're able to see through the bullshit he’s saying you’ll understand why it's not fine.
First off lets be honest if the Orlando attack wasn't at a gay nightclub, Trump wouldn’t even be mentioning the LGBTQ community. Before the heartbreaking shooting Trump rarely, if ever, mentioned the LGBTQ. He only barely discussed it when he was asked about the extremely controversial NC Bill; the one that banned Transgenders from using the bathroom with the gender they identify with. Second, Trump mentions hateful foreign ideology when some of the most hateful ideology against LGBTQ is right here in the United States, with some of the most hateful ones being the Republicans. The people who constantly try to pass laws that would take away the rights that the LGBTQ community have. Third and finally, Trump shows his lack of support for LGBTQ with his vice presidential pick Mike Pence. Pence is a man who favors laws and policies that prevent same-sex couples from adopting and getting married. Also in the past, he has been in favor of conversion therapy. If Pence’s bigotry isn't enough for you to not like him, consider the fact that he was once ignorant enough to claim that there was no link connecting smoking as a cause of lung cancer, despite the fact that reports linking smoking to cancer were made as early as 1964.
Honestly just trying to keep track of all the chaos and ignorance that was present during the RNC was exhausting, there was so much talking and speeches by everyone. Yet despite all those speeches there was barely any policy discussed at all, and if there was, it certainly wasn’t discussed by news outlets. Its obvious as ever now that people don’t actually care about what politicians plan to do to change the country, all they want are speeches reaffirming their previous beliefs.
