The speech that was the most damning last night, according to Will Saletan, was Rudy Giuliani’s. With his words, the former mayor of New York represented an upstanding, patient, moral Trump who doesn’t exist. Saletan writes that the speech shows how much cognitive dissonance is at play within the party: “What Trump has said—and continues to say—is so awful that you couldn’t bring yourselves, in four days of talking about him, to face who he really is.” (Where did the moderate, pragmatic Giuliani of yore go? In his own piece, Fred Kaplan wonders.)
Melania Trump’s copied speech has been the talk of the Internet (and cable news) today, but Jamelle Bouie sums up the overall tenor of the night and argues that the lifted words are a distraction. “The overriding theme was fear—fear of a brown horde,” Bouie writes. “There is no ‘pivot,’ no ‘general election Trump.’ The Donald Trump who shot to the top of the GOP primary with a message of fear and nativism is the Donald Trump who will claim the nomination on Thursday.”
No, argues Josh Levin; Melania’s plagiarism—and its cover-up—is no sideshow. It means something. “We need to pay attention to how the Trump operation disdains the truth,” Levin writes. “If they’re willing to lie about something as dumb as this, when the cost of coming clean is relatively low, then what do you think they’ll tell us about the ‘real issues’?”
Yesterday, anti-Trump Republicans tried, and failed, to force a roll call vote regarding convention rules that would have slowed down the convention and showcased their dissent. How did pro-Trump forces manage to steamroll the group? Jim Newell reports on a confusing, and suspicious, series of events.
Where did “your word is your bond,” one of the key phrases that shows up in both Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech and Melania Trump’s speech from Monday night, come from? Katy Waldman tells the story.
For fun: The oddball speakers up to bat tonight.
Kimberlin Brown? Can’t wait,
Rebecca
