Saturday, August 29, 2020

This is from "The Atlantic". "The two major party’s presidential tickets are officially set for the general election: Joe Biden will represent the Democrats and Donald Trump the Republicans." I didn't know that. What a fucking surprise.

The Atlantic

Dear Reader,

The two major party’s presidential tickets are officially set for the general election: Joe Biden will represent the Democrats and Donald Trump the Republicans. This year’s political conventions didn’t provide the usual pomp and pageantry Americans have been accustomed to (and might even be a death knell for future in-person ceremonies), but they did offer two weeks of contrasting visions of America’s current crises and coming challenges. Our politics team has been following it all, whether from the scene in Wilmington, Delaware, from the South Lawn of the White House, or from our homes.

The Democrats took the national stage first with a somber, serious, and at times fearful tone, less than a week after Biden announced Kamala Harris as his running mate, and used their digital convention to showcase the diverse array of Americans aligned against Trump’s reelection: “Democrats offered the 21st-century version of a Norman Rockwell painting,” Ron Brownstein notes of the DNC’s keynote address and roll call. Appearances by Republicans such as John Kasich and Colin Powell ruffled progressive feathers, but foreshadow the big-tent approach the Biden campaign is betting might swing some disaffected Republicans away from Trump come November. Still, Biden left out specifics about his vision for working- and middle-class families, keeping his attacks on Trump focused on the pandemic and the “soul of America.”

The Republicans—who declined to publish a party platform for 2020—used their digital convention to sound an alarm. They argued that Trump will “keep America America,” whether by ending “cancel culture,” preventing the “abolishment” of white suburbs, or easing voters’ worries about sexism and racism. The proceedings danced around a straightforward plan to fight the pandemic, and speakers referred to COVID-19 in the past tense and framed the virus as a challenge already overcome at some point before the summer surge. On the final night, from the White House’s South Lawn, where our correspondent Peter Nicholas reports that hundreds of people sat without masks and little social distancing, Trump laid into Biden, China, and America’s Democratic-run cities, previewing his strategy for the fall: paint Biden as a Trojan horse for the American left, capitalize on chaos when peaceful protests over police shootings spark violence, and obfuscate his administration’s record on the pandemic.

Over the next two months, the candidates will double down on their radically different views of what America is and whose voices should be heard. The presidential debates are already in view, the first being set for September 29 in Cleveland, Ohio. Thank you for following our team’s coverage of the most untraditional election in recent memory. It’s a privilege, and we appreciate your reading our work.

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