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Some weeks, it's tough coming up with a subtitle for these columns. Some weeks, not so much. This is one of the latter, because the juxtaposition of a colorful (to say the least) description of Donald Trump with a soap opera's title just naturally presented itself.
This column has always loved a good rant. Most of the time, we provide our own rant at the end of the column, on a subject too big to be contained in talking points. This week, we provide a number of rants from Republicans about their very own party's presidential nominee. Yes, it's only August and the Republican Party is coming apart at the seams. Which, of course, makes for great summertime reading for all!
The Drug Enforcement Agency finally just released its long-awaited decision, and it was a disappointing one for anyone hoping for a sane realignment of federal policy towards marijuana. Marijuana will remain a Schedule I dangerous controlled substance, although (the one silver lining) the federal monopoly on marijuana legally grown for scientific research purposes will end, and multiple sites will be allowed (only one now exists). This will help expand medical research on marijuana -- something that the federal government has been actively discouraging for decades, now. So at least there's that. But the D.E.A.'s refusal to recognize that (as Dylan once said) the times they are a-changing means that federal marijuana policy reform is likely to happen from one of two other possible routes.
It has been an extraordinary two weeks on the presidential campaign trail, but then again that statement could have been uttered pretty much at any point during the past year and still have been just as true. This time around, I'm referring to Donald Trump obviously starting to consider the possibility that he's going to lose the general election. He never used to talk about (or even acknowledge) this possibility before now, but all his dismal post-convention polling may have forced him to begin to think about it.
We've spent the past two weeks travelling to and from the Democratic National Convention, but due to the three-week period we've got to cover, we're not even going to attempt to adequately revisit everything that's happened in the political world since our last column.
In fact, we're not even going to write our talking points this week, and we're only briefly going to touch on what's going on and quickly hand out the awards, before we get to a rather extraordinary (and extensive) essay at the end, by guest author Eric Varela.
This is definitely going to be my final report from Philadelphia. I realize I'm almost a week late with it, but it was a busy and sleep-deprived week all around. In case you missed it, I reviewed the primetime speeches Monday and then yesterday posted my photos from the trip. Today I'm going to cover Day Three and Day Four (outside of the primetime hour), as well as give a few closing thoughts and general impressions.
Today I'd like to take a look at the four nights by focusing in only on the prime-time hour that appeared on broadcast television. For all the other things that happened on the stage of the convention, you always had to wonder: "Is anyone else out there actually even seeing this stuff?" I mean, cable channels did cover the convention live and you could even just tap into the feed (without all the commentary, in other words), but I wonder how many voters devote that kind of time and attention to this stuff.
Donald Trump finally stopped talking, so I can now start writing. His speech went on for almost an hour and a half, which was a bit much for me -- especially after an exhausting week of listening to Republicans talk. But that's the end of the evening, so let's go back to the beginning and see how we got here.
Heading into tonight's speechifying, I was convinced that Ted Cruz would emerge afterwards as the heir apparent to the Republican nomination in 2020, should Donald Trump fail to win in November. Now, I'm not so sure.
But before we get to the big story of the night, let's start at the beginning. Today, the realization finally dawned in the Trump camp that they had to do something to stop the bleeding over the plagiarism storyline. A staffer was summarily dragged out who offered to fall on her own sword, and magnanimous Donald pardoned her, saying "everyone makes mistakes." So they likely successfully prevented the story from continuing for another day. But it would have been overshadowed anyway (obviously) by the end of the night.
We are now halfway through the Republican National Convention, and I still have yet to hear a single policy proposal or thing that the Republicans or Donald Trump are for. Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much.