The Republican National Convention was a smash hit — and the petty left just can’t seem to take it.
From the first night of the RNC, the Democrats and the liberal media have launched sleazy smears against Republican speakers in a visible manifestation of the distress they must be feeling over the fact that the Democratic Party’s own convention was a complete disaster by comparison.
Instead of responding to the powerful message of the RNC with substance, the left resorted to name-calling and personal attacks — a tactic the Democrats have honed relentlessly in recent years.
Following the first night of the Republican convention, the word “cocaine” was trending on Twitter as countless liberal activists, commentators, and celebrities insinuated that Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle — both of whom delivered powerful and passionate speeches — were under the influence of the drug. Evidently liberals have completely forgotten what it’s like to have a candidate who inspires genuine enthusiasm.
“Jesus he is legit ramped out of his god damn mind,” columnist Rick Wilson tweeted after Trump Jr.’s speech. Mark Harris, a writer for the New York Magazine and Vulture, also hopped on the bandwagon, tweeting, “I think my TV just got a cocaine nosebleed.” Stephen Colbert chose to devote an entire skit to amplifying the attack, claiming that the president’s son “looked like he had snorted a key.”
As the RNC rumbled on, the progressive smear machine zeroed in on new targets, including Republican House candidate Madison Cawthorn, a paraplegic who stood for the national anthem with the help of a walker as a contrast to the athletes who have chosen to kneel during the anthem as a form of political protest.
"Be a radical for liberty and be a radical for our republic for which I stand, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all," Cawthorn said as he rose from his wheelchair in what can only be described as one of the most inspiring moments of the entire convention.
PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, however, saw it differently, calling Cawthorn’s patriotic act “a direct rebuke of actions by ppl — including black athletes who are currently sitting out games — protesting police brutality.”
A “rebuke” is exactly what it was — not a rebuke of those who protest police brutality, but of the underlying notion that this country and its values are somehow at fault. The fact that Alcindor clearly expected her audience to interpret that as an act of malice says a great deal about the intolerance of the contemporary left, which views any expression of dissenting viewpoints as inherently illegitimate and considers patriotism a cardinal sin.
Of course, the wide-ranging smears against Republican lawmakers and politicians were only the beginning — the biggest barrage of attacks from the liberal media came in response to President Trump’s acceptance speech on the final day of the convention.
Media outlets such as CNN rushed to put out their notorious “fact checks” in a flailing attempt to manipulate public perceptions of the President’s accomplishments. In one instance, the network accused Donald Trump of lying over his perfectly accurate claim that the U.S. economy has added more than nine million jobs in the past three months, arguing that he should have also emphasized the unemployment figures from March and April, even though that had little if anything to do with the point he was actually making about unprecedented pace of the post-pandemic recovery.
The president wasn’t there to give the American people a history lesson in economics — it’s difficult to imagine anyone being unaware of the artificial coronavirus contraction. Rather, his objective was to celebrate the success of his administration’s emergency economic relief policies, which were implemented in response to the temporary contraction and designed to jump-start the “V-shaped” recovery that has already yielded the most rapid job creation in American history.
In another instance, a CNN fact check flagged President Trump’s perfectly accurate claim that the U.S. has “already built 300 miles of border wall.” CNN triumphantly declared that some of the construction involved rebuilding old and ineffective physical barriers on the border, ignoring the fact that upgrading obsolete sections of the wall was an important part of the President’s border security strategy from the very beginning.
Predictably, left-wing publications such as Vox went on to parrot CNN’s coverage, amplifying the network’s dishonest claims about the president’s speech.
These attacks are not sophisticated criticisms of the Republican Party and its platform — they are desperate tantrums from people who just saw their own side’s inadequacies cast in stark relief. The rattled left just can’t come to terms with the fact that the RNC has been objectively superior to the Democrat Party’s nationally televised calamity last week, and it shows.
Democrats should just take the “L,” dust themselves off, and vow to do better going forward. No one likes sore losers.
Harlan Hill is a political advisor, media commentator, an advisory board member of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and the author of They’re Not Listening: How The Elites Created the National Populist Revolution.