Watching countless hours of the 2024 Republican National Convention is quite instructive and serves tremendous purpose, to wit: to remind everyone that the cloistered Acela Media have nothing but utter contempt for significant portions of the American public.
Case in point: Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan just casually chatting about the décor at the Fiserv Forum, and finding within it an authoritarianism:
CBS EVENING NEWS
7/18/24
6:36 PM
NORAH O’DONNELL: We want to bring in Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, and Margaret- about that imagery that Robert (Costa) was mentioning and who we’re going to hear from tonight, there's also a sign posted throughout this convention hall that says, “they’re not after me, they’re after you.” What is that meant to convey?
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is very much a strongman image, “I am your protector. And anything you hear in terms of criticism of me, it's really about you.” It's the culture war, class war messaging here. But really, Norah, what’s striking is this is not just -- this isn't the Republican Party, this is the Trump Family Party now. And we are seeing that very clearly. This is built around this one personality and from the walk-on song, It's a Man's World yesterday to Kid Rock tonight, to coming down with all of the fighting, it's about “I am your protector.” It’s an image we’ve seen around the world and other countries and here, there are no other giants in the Republican Party. The only one here is Donald Trump on these walls, only him.
O’DONNELL: And there’s a paternal aspect to it as well, with all of the references to him as Grandpa.
BRENNAN: Isn’t that interesting, that we hear Joe Biden calling his grandkids all the time. Yesterday, you heard one of the grandchildren, Kai Trump, say “oh, grandpa calls me too.” There wasn’t a lot of acknowledgement that the former first lady was not here. Ivanka Trump was not here until tonight. But it takes some of the rough edges off of the strongman when you see he has a family, too.
O’DONNELL: Margaret Brennan, thank you so much.
These people leave the cloistered confines of Washington, D.C. and come out and pontificate on people they despise and have no desire to understand. The entire fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of “they’re not after me, they’re after you”, which is really a butchery of “they’re not after me, they’re really after you but I’m in the way”, was on display as Brennan babbled on about strongmen and protectors.
The statement is really about persecution and weaponization of government, and we’ve particularly seen that play out over the past few years. Instead, we get sneering about that and about how Trump’s grandkids really soften the “strongman”.
That, and an underlying contempt for masculinity- which seems to be a common theme throughout this convention.
