We’ve seen all the stories about tanks in DC and the Trumpified Fourth of July celebration later this week. These things are wrong. They’re grotesque. But last night I saw something quite different. According to HuffPost, the RNC has been given tickets to distribute for the event. It’s already clear that this is in substance going to be another Trump political rally. But it’s on US government property. It’s paid for by the US government and in significant part by the US military. It not includes display of heavy weaponry. Trump will apparently have the heads of each uniformed service on stage with him as he speaks. Tickets distributed by the RNC are by definition used for fundraising purposes even if they are not directly sold to donors for a certain contribution price. They’re used to leverage political contributions.
As I said, the rest is grotesque. But most of what we’ve seen is about “norms”. This is different. There are all sorts of regulations and laws about commingling US government events and the President’s political party, especially the President selling military events to GOP donors to raise money for the President’s re-election campaign and for funds to retake the House in next year’s election.
If you know more about this let us know.
