After the first full day of the R/TNC (Republican/Trumpian National Convention) I think it is time to talk about the Elephant in the ICU room. The GOP is now on life support caused not only by the Covid-19 Pandemic but also by its pre-existing morbid condition(s), of which selecting Donald J Trump as its “Leader” is just one symptom. And just what symptoms am I talking about? Well let’s just start with the latest and work backwards.

Monday, the first day of the R/TNC, instead of having the Nomination of Trump as their candidate and the ‘roll call of the states’ to elect him, the R/TNC did it in the middle of the day. They also passed what they, the R/TNC called their “platform” which just said “What ever Donald Wants, Donald Gets” (With apologies to “Damn Yankees”) until 2024. To my knowledge this is the first time a major American political party has ever not had a platform. So what does this mean for the “Old” GOP?

Just this, what we saw last night in prime time is what the R/TNC wants every Republican candidate to run on. You get to pick your speech and run on that. You get to run on hate, or you can run on fear, or you can run on “Those Were the Good Old Days” (again with apologies to “Damn Yankees”) or you can run on any combination you wish. You will probably be able to run on anything that comes up for the next three days as long as you throw in “Trump” every now and then. The one thing you will not be able to do is run on anything that used to be core Republican principles. Those are things are of the past and not allowed in the GTP (Grand Trump Party).

There is one other thing you will not be allowed to run on, the new guiding principle of the GTP. You can’t mention that it is all about one thing . “POWER”. Who has it. Who doesn’t have it. Using it as you will, without any restraint. As once was written by George Orwell “The purpose of Power is Power”. An yes I’m talking about “1984” but what most people forget is Orwell was an anti-communist Socialist, as strange as that might seem in this day and age. What most people don’t know is that an unrestrained authoritarian state is the same whether it calls itself “Communist” or “Fascist”. An what MAGA is selling is an authoritarian state dressed up in “Free” enterprise lipstick.

And now here we are on Thursday waiting for the closing act. It is as a shame that the R/TNC doesn’t seem to have a director like Leni Riefenstahl to create a masterful production like “Triumph of the Will“. Instead we have gotten something more like a four day “infomercial”. An once again we see what the dreadful effect of abandoning their principles has had on the Republican Party. I cannot think of any single speaker who was able to sound a hopeful Theme. The GOP media masters seem to not have studied what is considered by those who study propaganda to be one of the greatest works of the art.

So just remember this the current Republican Party has only hate, fear, and loathing to campaign on, not a principle one.