Conventional Wisdom III

So, when I decided I’d do daily updates through the Republican National Convention, I just assumed that there would be a steady stream of big breaking news coming out of the convention, but so far it’s been fairly uneventful?

Well, for most attendees.

I know that’s an odd thing to say in the wake of an assassination attempt on the party’s presidential candidate, but that event — despite the breathless assurances from lazy political pundits that This Changes Everything!!!!1one1!! — has already faded from view.

And the usual things that make conventions dramatic — speeches by former presidents and Cabinet officials, internal fights over the party platform, the dramatic unveiling of the vice presidential candidate, etc. — have largely been missing here.

The elder statesmen of the GOP want nothing to do with Trump, but even the members of his own Cabinet, even his own vice president, have been largely absent. The platform, as I discussed last time, is a non-issue, and Trump rushed the rollout of his Mini Me running mate on Monday afternoon. Unlike past Republican conventions which have had plenty of stagecraft and excitement for their base, this one has been pretty damn boring.

I mean, they’re psychos, sure. But as the great Malcolm Tucker once said, they’re goddamn boring psychos.

Indeed, much of the big breaking news this week has taken place on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Part of this is the media’s ongoing obsession with the West Wing scenarios about replacing Biden. The polls haven’t budged, but the president has just contracted COVID so we can expect more drama — real or invented — in this lane for the foreseeable future.

But beyond that, Biden has been making news this week and stealing the spotlight from Trump. He had a good night in front of the NAACP, which was to be expected, but he also unveiled a long overdue program for judicial reform the other day, in an apparent thank you to the progressive forces that have had his back the most in recent weeks.

It’s not exactly the second coming of court-packing, but it’s a significant step in the right direction. At the very least, it makes the partisan hackery of the federal courts a major issue in the campaign, as it should be. As I’ve noted before here, the general reluctance of Democrats to engage in judicial reforms stems from a serious misreading of FDR’s court-packing plan and it’s really good to see Biden shake off those fears here.

Anyway, J.D. Vance is going to be taking the stage tonight, so maybe we’ll hear him explain that, yes, he called Trump “America’s Hitler” but he meant it in a good way.