Welcome to this week’s delve into European coverage of the Republican convention.
The extracts below have been translated by humans, but the links to non-English language sources take you to somewhat less intelligible GoogleTranslate renderings. (Should you get strange messages about malformed requests, try clearing cache and cookies.)
I will start by taking this opportunity to solicit congratulations and whatever else you deem appropriate given that today is my 58th birthday.
Thanks.
This is not a well-balanced selection. Compiling it has been much like drinking from a fire hydrant, so it’s some stuff which has caught my eye.
I know people don’t like reading the repetitions of Hillary being disliked and distrusted, but her numbers do look appalling to seasoned election-watchers. That Trump’s are worse is scant comfort to people on a continent which didn’t think Brexit could happen. Europeans are looking on helplessly as the bizarre American election process plays out, hoping against hope that sanity will prevail. It doesn’t matter that what some weird Americans believe is complete rubbish, because there is no law which prevents idiots voting. Given the possibly appalling consequences of the upcoming election, it would be irresponsible for foreign reporters not to help their readers understand why a choice which looks like a no-brainer is still nowhere near certain.
I’ll begin with a short piece by Veit Medick in Der Spiegel which describes the way in which conventional wisdoms may not apply:
The Republican convention was a debacle. The party is by no means united behind its candidate. But that may not matter to Trump.
The race is over, say many - game over. But it is not that simple. Just because the Grand Old Party has fallen to pieces, that does not mean that Trump loses the November 8 election. The party has never been very important to the billionaire, quite the opposite. He has risen because he destroyed it, because he made it the symbol of an alienated and corrupt politics. Trump does not need the Republicans. He has his own sect, his devoted fans inside and outside the party.
Trump’s sect is a remarkable force. His followers are very white, very old and have an idiosyncratic relationship with the truth. The sect believes that the plagiarism allegations against his wife Melania are a conspiracy of the liberal media. It believes that the Avenger Ted Cruz has helped the candidate with his appearance because it shows the narcissism of Washington professional politicians. And it believes in the great promise of their leader: that lost jobs will come back, that Trump can ward off all external dangers and that the wall on the border with Mexico will stop immigration.
He goes on to point out that Hillary is ahead in the polls and that Philadelphia is likely to be a superior event, but mournfully concludes
But still there are three and a half months to go. And a failed Convention may be quickly forgotten. Above all in the world of Trump’s followers, to whom the party counts for nothing.
El Mundo has more on the Trump cultists:
The similarity between the Brexiters and Trump is not exaggerated. The leader of the British nationalist party UKIP Nigel Farage and the leader of the Dutch far-right Eurosceptic Geert Wilders , who wants a referendum so that his country can leave the EU and euro are in Cleveland.
So it is a movement against 'privilege'. But for what? There, Huckabee had no doubts: "He is against the status quo, but does not have a program." Indeed, the Republican convention is a desert from the policy point of view. There is not a single idea other than building a wall along the border with Mexico . The only concept that the stars of reality TV, the profession best represented on stage, are defending is effectiveness. The effectiveness of Trump, they mean.
The traditional Republican message has been wiped off the map. No allusions to the private sector, privatization of the pension system, reducing the size of government, lower taxes. There is only rage. Or rather, hatred.
In 2004, the war cry of the delegates was "turncoat" to refer to Democratic candidate John Kerry. In 2008, "drill, baby, drill", in curious tribute to Sarah Palin, the vice presidential candidate and then a heroine to conservatives. In 2016, the song is "Lock her up". What is not clear is what those who are outside the Quicken Loans Sports Arena will make of it all.
Talking of the British embarrassment, Tim Walker in The Independent has:
As the figurehead for a group of frustrated nationalist voters, and as a man not infrequently accused of racism, Nigel Farage might appear to be a natural bedfellow for Donald Trump. But, speaking during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Wednesday, the former UKIP leader admitted even he found Mr Trump’s presidential campaign a touch coarse at times.
“He’s prepared to talk about issues that perhaps other people find a bit awkward, a bit uncomfortable,” Mr Farage told an audience at a breakfast event organised by McClatchy, saying he admired the billionaire property mogul’s ability to reach out to angry, blue collar voters. “I can see what he’s trying to do, but occasionally the style of it makes even me wince a little bit.”
Peter Winkler in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung draws out some other themes which ring faint alarm bells:
At the climax of the Republican Convention Donald Trump described an extraordinarily bleak picture of the situation in America. He promised rescue, but without going into the details of how he plans to do it. He painted the United States as a country under siege, beset by "Islamic terrorists" and subtle manipulators from abroad and lawbreakers inside, betrayed and forgotten by the elites. He will fight this suffering as a candidate of law and order.
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At the same time Trump also made people sit up when he talked about traditional taboo subjects, such as the LGBTQ community.... Undoubtedly Trump has changed the Republican Party within a few months. Four years ago, the appearance of a Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Internet payment service PayPal and investor in various companies in Silicon Valley, would have been inconceivable at the main evening of the Convention. Thiel proclaimed on stage that he was proud to be a Republican and be gay. He called the culture wars - for example, the still fierce battle against same-sex marriage in many states - a distraction from the real issues. And he received a standing ovation.
Looking back on the four days of election Convention the only identifiable common thread is rejection of - and to a large extent contempt for - the likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump too on Thursday evening denounced her complete failure as Foreign Minister and dishonesty towards their compatriots. Of note, however, was that he replied to the chanted "Lock her up!" demands, with the proposal simply to defeat her in the fall.
France’s Le Monde's editorial is reasonably scathing:
In his speech accepting the party nomination, Thursday, July 21, Mr. Trump has walked back none of his campaign promises, all decidedly contrary to Republican credo. He questions the strategic alliances the United States has had in Asia and in Europe since the end of World War II: their continuation will depend on the effort that Washington's allies are willing to make to ensure their own defense. America can no longer pay as much as today, he said; first it must take care of its internal business - "America first.”
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As the candidate of a silent revolt against globalization, he denounced two of the main factors which ensured growth - unequally - in the US in recent years: immigration and free trade. All he has is denunciation and protest - he offers no economic program. He does not celebrate America today, he hates diversity - no Republican convention in the last twenty years has had so few black delegates.
He does not inspire traditional Republican optimism. He wants to be the candidate who embodies the resentment of those left behind by globalization. Whether it is cynical or in good faith, it is dangerous either way; it stirs up resentment. He has already changed the face of the Republican Party . We can but hope he does not do the same with the United States.
Dirk Hautkapp's syndicated column gives a rather good summary of the main points of Trump’s speech (one of the clearest and most dispassionate I’ve seen) and then rather more cheerfully concludes:
Cleveland reveals a deeply torn party that has gathered in agony behind Trump. The gaps between conservatives of the old school and Trump’s followers preaching no compromise could not be bridged. "I now know what we are against," a delegate from Virginia said on behalf of many, "what we’re for and how we’re supposed to fight for it with the Democrats in Congress, I have absolutely no idea."
According to majority opinion in the US media, Trump’s Coronation Convention was a fiasco in which the only impressive contributions which stood out positively were by part of his family (son Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka) . Otherwise the verdict was disorganized, tiresomely lengthy, plagued by distractions like his wife’s plagiarism issue (stolen from Michelle Obama) or the mini-revolt by his rival Ted Cruz. Dozens of party celebrities (the entire Bush clan, former presidential candidates like Mitt Romney) stayed away from the event. The majority of the 60 speakers had only one topic: stop Hillary Clinton. Whatever the cost.
Here’s a piece by Tim Stanley in the Daily Telegraph which makes decidedly uncomfortable reading. If you click through to it, there are some things said about HRC which verge on the flaggable, so be warned.
Watergate has dimmed our view of Nixon, but he never swore in public, he treated his wife with great courtesy, upheld ancient Republican ideals on civil rights and truly believed in public service. That Nixon would've lost the primaries to Trump. Because America has changed, man. It's changed.
Its people are still good, polite, compassionate. But millions have lost their well-paid industrial jobs and now schlep behind a desk or a counter for far lower wages. Their faith in government is gone. Their religion has become less theological and more cultural; Christmas and weddings, little more. Their culture is debased.
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Enter Donald Trump. He is the man for these times. "Let me be your voice."
Why not? He has a plane. A hot wife. He builds things. He's not a politician. What's not to like? And much of what he said was right. America has sacrificed its industrial base to import cheap crap from China. There has been a vile campaign against the police. Islamist terrorism is a real problem and must be decapitated. How can Hillary disagree? What will she say?
Who is worse? Donald or Hillary? On Thursday night, Trump may have begun a winning campaign to convince America that the answer is Clinton. It was a speech for its time. A sad time.
What is amazing about that article is that Mr Stanley’s piece on the morning before the speech, which was in the Torygraph, but I’ve linked to the reprint in the Irish Independent to let you find some other stuff, is considerably less adulatory:
Day one brought Melaniagate: the scandal over whether Miss Cleveland stole her speech from Michelle Obama. When that broke I was still sufficiently in awe of The Donald to think that maybe this was a gaffe committed on purpose, to keep us talking about it. But this was followed by Tuesday's floor fight over the nomination, in which the narrowness of Trump's primary "triumph" was revealed for all to see. And then, on Wednesday, Ted Cruz offered a devastating non-endorsement that just might cripple Trump's entire candidacy.
Things were going badly before Cruz showed up. Trump's primetime acts are a succession of D-list celebrities who appear never to have spoken in public before. Phil Ruffin - a businessman who looks like a character who gets whacked very early on in 'Scarface' - growled that we should vote for Trump because "he always pays his bills promptly". Businesswoman Michelle Van Etten, who wore a cape, told us that her dream as a child "was to be a circus performer" and suggested that Trump would make a mighty fine ringleader.
Thing is, it's all very well to have a convention full of ordinary people. But these aren't ordinary people. They're strange people that Trump once met in an elevator.
He once met a guy called Marco Rubio when running for the nomination - "little Marco", he called him - and so Rubio was asked to give an endorsement, too. He did so via a video. So tawdry was Marco's humiliation, so abject, that he decided it was best to deliver it as far away from the convention as possible. The role of Daniel among the lions was left to Ted Cruz - and, like any good evangelical, he jumped at the chance to be martyred. Trump's team saw Cruz's speech hours before he delivered it. Yet they let him go ahead. Why? I'm starting to suspect it's because they're idiots.
My conclusion is that Tim Stanley has a gift for the vivid phrase but very little sense.
In what I still think of as the Glasgow Herald, Alison Rowat has a very interesting piece about Trump being an unconventional Republican, pointing out that while we know a number of his frightening views on foreign affairs and racial politics, we know very little indeed about his economic ideas. There’s a slight desperation to it, very similar to articles in the British press by Remainers trying to convince themselves that Brexit doesn’t mean total disaster:
What is remarkable thus far is how Teflon the Donald has turned out to be. Nothing appears to faze or embarrass him or his camp. The Melania speech is a case in point. Another candidate, say a Joe Biden, once caught using Neil Kinnock’s lines, would have apologised for any muddle, and, in time, made a joke of it. With the Trump camp? An acknowledgment that Melania's team of writers “took notes on her life's inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking”. Kiddies, remember that one if ever you are caught copying homework. “I didn’t cheat Miss, I merely included fragments from Jimmy’s homework that reflected my own thinking.” Whatever the story is, Mr Trump’s utter shamelessness swallows it in one gulp, so that all one remembers is his chutzpah rather than the transgression.
...
It is only concerning, however, if one believes his policy choices would be disastrous if he became president and was given the chance to implement them. But aside from his immigration policies, his ban on Muslim visitors and the wall, what do we know of the Trump manifesto? While that might sound like a Mrs Lincoln question (“Apart from that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs L?”), it is worth asking if only to highlight how much of an unknown quantity this man is, how he has come this far without his ideas seeing the light of day, never mind being tested. Why, anyone would think the hoopla that surrounds him was a way of hiding the fact he has no policies. Anyone would be right. But can he carry on as the candidate lite? At what point is the curtain torn aside, and if it is not, how much trouble might the world be in?
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There is still hope. Mr Trump can play safe when he needs to, as evidenced by his choice of steady-as-he-goes Indiana Governor Mike Pence as running mate. More importantly, there is a limit to how much anyone in the job can do. When one looks at American government in the modern era the one abiding lesson is that it is toweringly difficult to get anything done. Ask Mr Obama. It is possible to engineer a modicum of radical reform, as he did with healthcare, but stage a revolution? America has been there, done that, and learned the lessons accordingly. There is method in what sometimes seems like madness. There is history. One of the first tasks undertaken by a country that was built in opposition to monarchy and rule by diktat was to make sure such things could not happen again, that the republic would not come under the sway of a demagogue. Power was separated between the executive, the judiciary and the legislature the better to preserve a balance, to keep checks on the mighty.
There are, of course, people who look forward to a Trump presidency. Yes, they’re Russians. Vzgliad review a recent Trump interview:
Donald Trump has confirmed his reputation as a foreign policy realist. On the eve of his keynote speech at the Republican Party convention, the presidential candidate and billionaire remained angry, saying that, before lecturing other countries, America needs to fix the mess at home. During the GOP convention in Cleveland Trump gave an interview to The New York Times - a newspaper that supports his opponent, Hillary Clinton. During the meeting, they talked about Trump’s foreign policy views, and he continued to stick to his line, which really is the main reason for American interventionists to hate him….
When Trump praised Erdogan for the fact that he stopped the military coup, reporters asked him if he would demand that the Turkish leader stop the purge of political opponents and abandon the suppression of civil liberties. Trump was more than concrete:
"I do not think we have the right to lecture. Look what is happening in our country. How can we preach, when people are coolly shooting at police? When the world sees how badly behaved the United States is, and we begin to talk about civil liberties, we do not look the best teachers.”This is completely contrary to the entire doctrine of American global leadership, as it was understood in the past decade by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
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Speaking of whom he consults, Trump named former secretaries of state Republican James Baker and Henry Kissinger, from whom he received "great knowledge". This in itself is significant - Kissinger is one of the most intelligent American geopolitics realists. The man, who was co-author of Nixon’s independent foreign policy in the 70s (to build up the bombing of Vietnam, and to negotiate with Brezhnev), said during the conflict over Ukraine that the West does not take the interests of Moscow into account, and now calls for restoration of trust between the US and Russia.
Kissinger, like Trump, understands that in order to survive as a state (even a superpower - but not a world empire), America needs to shift the focus from interventionism in internal problems and move from claiming global leadership to building a global system of checks and balances - to the balance of power. Trump has already demonstrated a clear willingness to do so - which is not bad. Both for America and Russia.
I’ll finish with a couple of pieces which look at what Trump’s winning the nomination may be saying about America. Both have interesting points, though I think some are rather questionable.
Matt Ayton in The Independent is satisfyingly abusive, although his conclusion is sombre:
Donald Trump took the stage at the Republican National Convention to the sound of Queen’s ‘We are the champions’, a choice song for a tycoon who seems to worship nothing other than his own skin. We know that this kitschy bombast is a subliminal appeal for us think of the presidential campaign as part-drama and part-entertainment, but beware: both have the capacity to numb the increasing unease at the sight before us, the unlikely popinjay who might actually become commander-in-chief of the United States of America.
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Trump’s hairpiece might fade into obscurity, but his legacy won’t. Trump did not manage to conjure a gratuitous xenophobia among the US electorate – it was already there, in latent, and in some cases blatant, form. Trump has, in the eyes of his supporters, vindicated and legitimised feelings of supremacy and resentment of the ‘other’.
That the GOP has capitulated to Trump’s most invidious policies – despite many of the previous candidates, including Ted Cruz, rejecting them – suggests that a new consensus has ossified.The world now beholds an even more chauvinist Republican party with an emboldened electorate.
I would like to say that, if Trump loses, we may ever have to look upon his like again – but his legacy will be the great winner of the 2016 US presidential election.
Lastly, a remarkably good piece by Martin Wolf, originally behind the Financial Times paywall but reprinted in the Irish Times:
The remedies they offer are bogus. But the illnesses are real. If governing elites continue to fail to offer convincing cures, they might soon be swept away and, with them, the effort to marry democratic self-government with an open and co-operative world order.
So what is to be done?
First, understand that we depend on one another for our prosperity. It is essential to balance assertions of sovereignty with the requirements of global co-operation. Global governance, while essential, must be oriented towards doing things countries cannot do for themselves. It must focus on providing the essential global public goods. Today this means climate change is a higher priority than further opening of world trade or capital flows.
Second, reform capitalism. The role of finance is excessive. The stability of the financial system has improved. But it remains riddled with perverse incentives. The interests of shareholders are given excessive weight over those of other stakeholders in corporations.
Above all, recognise the challenge. Prolonged stagnation, cultural upheavals and policy failures are combining to shake the balance between democratic legitimacy and global order. The candidacy of Mr Trump is a result. Those who reject the chauvinist response must come forward with imaginative and ambitious ideas aimed at re-establishing that balance. It is not going to be easy. But failure must not be accepted. Our civilisation itself is at stake.
I realize this collection has been a bit depressing. What I hope it’s done is bring home how serious the enterprise on which Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine have embarked is and how important it is for the future of the planet that Trump be defeated resoundingly.
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