July 26, 2020--Upset

After revealing here that I was planning to watch all four days of the Republican convention one friend who read my piece asked why I was going to torture myself that way. "Why not instead watch a movie or tune into the new Perry Mason?"

"To know thy enemy," I said. 

"I get it," she said, "Maybe I'll try to do the same thing."

After the first night, another friend called to ask how I did. I confessed that the convention so upset me that I stopped watching at about 10:30.

"I stopped at 9:00," she said, "Shortly after we spoke on the phone. I spent the rest of the night listening to West-coast jazz," she said, still sounding languid. 

"What upset you?" she said, "As if I don't know--Everything? All of it? Right?"

"Yes and no," I said.  

"Tell me about the 'no,'" she said.

"They were disgusting. All the presenters. Nikki Haley was the worst. She was almost drooling in anticipation of running for the presidency in four years. Her speech was like an acceptance speech. Most of it was about her family and childhood. But she also was so praiseworthy of Trump, sucking up to him, that she said, she really did, that he was in the vanguard of those fighting to save 'Western Civilization.'"

"So that's why he loves Putin so much," my friend said, "Another protector of Western Civilization. But, say more about what down deep upset you so much. Putin is old news as is Haley's interest in running for the presidency."

"You really know me, don't you," I said. "You know it was something else that got to me that made me so agitated."

"So tell, tell."

"I was as upset as I was not because of how bad the Trump people were, but because of how good they were. Even Donald Jr. came off looking substantial. When I realized that in their own perverse ways they were doing well I gabbed the remote and began surfing, looking for a Perry Mason rerun."

"I'm getting this," my friend said, "It may also have been why I didn't watch very much. I couldn't stand the idea of seeing them, in their own terms, doing well or even decently. I needed to see them screw up, making a mockery of themselves."

I said, "It also upset me to see how relatively organized they were. And that they could muster a version of diversity. They put on more than a few African-American and Latino folks. Not just a bunch of white guys clutching six-packs. I know I'm being stereotypical, but really, they did credibly and that upset me."

"Me too," my friend confessed.

I then said, "At least since the late '60s the Republicans have been working on their political revolution. You remember Kevin Phillip's, The Emerging Republican Majority? It was published in 1969 and became a kind of road map for how to take power. Including competing for anything up for grabs, from dog catcher to governor to senator to president. Republicans for many decades have been working on taking power at the local, state, and national levels. And have had a lot of success."

We paused to catch our breaths and think about all the things we discussed that had upset us so much. 

My fiend finally said, "I think you're right, but Biden is still going to win. And big." 

"I agree," I said. "But we'd better work our asses off to make sure that happens."

Kimberly Guilfoyle--Don Junior's Gilrlfiend