There was some question until last night whether the Trump operation was actually going to be able to put on a convention. Until what amounted to the last minute they’d failed to put out a list of convention speakers. But now we have a tentative list and some indication of what the program will involve. It is, as it must be, classic Trump, a tribute to him, his family, various yes-men and lickspittles and a hard doubling down on the red meat base Republican politics that got him here in the first place.
This is a very shrewd take on what’s unfolded over the last few days in the GOP platform drafting process. In one sense, Donald Trump having a particularly extreme party platform is no surprise. But it’s not quite that. Normally, the nominee and the people around him invest a fair amount of time keeping party activists and interest groups in check, the ones who want to really pile on the red meat and extremism. They hardcore folks want X; the nominee tussles with them and makes them settle for 1/2X. But this time, Trump doesn’t care and no one is there to provide a counterbalance. He may not even know there is a platform. So instead of 1/2X it’s 2x or, shall we say, XXX. It’s allowed the hardest core of the right to produce what’s probably the most extreme GOP platform in history.
Give this a close read and I think you’ll see good evidence that the party the GOP establishment, such as it is, gets back after the disastrous fling with Trump will be structurally a lot more conservative and a lot less forgiving.
We’re sending TPM Reporters Tierney Sneed and Lauren Fox to Cleveland to cover the Republican National Convention next week (the Dems in Philly the week after too). And they’ll be taking your questions tomorrow at 1pm eastern in The Hive (sub. req.) Get your questions in now and join them tomorrow to get all your questions answered.
This isn’t getting a lot of attention. But it should. Everybody took note when Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that American Muslims across the river in New Jersey celebrated and cheered as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 – an entirely fabricated claim. Last night on Bill O’Reilly’s show and then separately at a rally in Westfield, Indiana he did something very similar and in so doing cemented his status an impulsive propagator of race-hatred and violence.
Just a quick note to remind you, let you know that we kick off our annual Prime membership drive tomorrow. Join us. In case you missed it, check out the first edition of our new virtual magazine, The Arch: America’s Rifle: A Biography of the AR-15.
Trump lawyers are going before Judge Curiel today to ask that video of Trump’s deposition in the Trump University case not be released publicly. It’s no surprise they would prefer this. But what’s amazing is their argument: it will hurt his presidential campaign.
I wanted to give you a quick polling update, with a scattering of new polls out this morning and in recent days.
Courtesy of TPM Reader MM we have this amazing tweet from a state rep doofus down in Florida named Dave Kerner …
@elizabethforma the man is supposed to ask the woman. Stop trying to trample our religious beliefs. #tcot
— Rep. Dave Kerner (@DavidMKerner) July 12, 2016
Late Update: As I later learned in an exchange with him on Twitter, Kerner was mocking a notional rightwing response to Warren. Yes, really. Not kidding. Since when do electeds snark?
O’Reilly asks Trump whether it’s true that there’s bias against African-Americans in American society. Trump responds that sure, the system is rigged against him too. Video after the jump.