Sunday Open Thread [7.17.16]

Filed in National by on July 17, 2016

Ezra Klein says Donald Trump’s speech introducing Mike Pence showed why he shouldn’t be president.

I do not know how to explain what I just watched. It should be easy. Donald Trump introduced Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate. There it is. One sentence. Eleven words. But that doesn’t explain what happened any better than “I spent a few hours letting lysergic acid diethylamide mimic serotonin in my brain” explains an acid trip. What just happened was weird, and it was important.

Back in May, EJ Dionne wrote that the hardest thing about covering Donald Trump would be “staying shocked.” Watching him, day after day, week after week, month after month, the temptation would be to normalize his behavior, “to move Trump into the political mainstream.”

But today helped. Donald Trump’s introduction of Mike Pence was shocking. Forget the political mainstream. What happened today sat outside the mainstream for normal human behavior. […] What started as farce continued as farce. Trump emerged without Pence. He spoke, alone, at a podium adorned with Trump’s name, but not Pence’s. And then Trump proceeded to talk about himself for 28 minutes. There is no other way to say this than to say it: it was the single most bizarre, impulsive, narcissistic performance I have ever seen from a major politician.

There is no way I will be able to properly described Trump’s speech to you. You should really just go and watch it yourself.

Soner Cagaptay is one of several people writing today on the idea that a coup attempt in Turkey was bad, but that a failed coup may turn out to be worse.

Though we do not yet know who was behind the Turkish coup plot to overthrow the Justice and Development (AK) Party government and the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one thing is for certain: after this attempt, Turkey will be less free and less democratic. If the military had won, then Turkey would have become an oppressive country run by generals. And if Erdogan wins, and this looks the likely outcome, Turkey will still become more oppressive.

Since coming to power in 2003, Erdogan has run the country with an increasingly authoritarian grip, cracking down on dissent as well as freedoms of expression, assembly, association and media. Initially a reformist seeking European Union accession, after winning electoral victories in 2007 and 2011 on a platform of economic good governance, Erdogan has turned conservative and authoritarian.

Peter Wehner wonders if, post-Trump, the GOP can ever be the “party of Lincoln” again

For my entire adult life I have listened to the invective leveled against the Republican Party by liberals: It is a party sustained by racist appeals, composed of haters and conspiracy nuts, indifferent to the plight of the poor and the weak, anti-woman.

I have repeatedly denied those charges, publicly and forcefully. The broad indictment, the unfair generalizations, were caricature and calumny, the product of the fevered imagination of the left. Then along came Donald J. Trump, who seemed to embody every awful charge made against the Republican Party.

This is a significant diss of the convention home state Ohio, a crucial swing state that Trump must win. Home states usually go front and center. Not second row and off the far side.

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Comments (3)

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  1. cassandra m says:
    July 17, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    They killed the logo!

  2. cassandra m says:
    July 17, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    Digby publishes Elizabeth Warren’s Twitter rant against Pence.

  3. puck says:
    July 17, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    I wish there were a game called Politics GO where you walk around collecting politicians and train them to face off in debates and elections.

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