Opinion: How Trump will try to erase what Democrats accomplished
Three centuries later, philosopher John Stuart Mill questioned the practicality of achieving a Utopia — popularizing the term “dystopia” in a speech to the House of Commons.
As they presented their case this past week for ousting the President, Democrats summoned a dystopian vision of Donald Trump’s America: a rampaging virus, record unemployment and democracy in danger. Over four nights, convention speakers, including Barack and Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Jill Biden, invoked decency, empathy, democracy, diversity and unity to rally voters behind Joe Biden. Trump is clueless about the Covid-19 pandemic and completely out of his depth in his job, they said. “It is what it is,” Michelle Obama concluded, echoing the President’s own recent comment.
But that was last week. Starting Monday Republicans will have a chance to strike back at their convention, to defend Trump’s presidency and to warn Americans not to entrust the White House to Democrats. And the outlines of their own fearsome dystopia are not hard to imagine. On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence said on Fox News, “Joe Biden said last night that democracy was on the ballot, character’s on the ballot. Well, the economy is on the ballot, law and order is on the ballot, and the American people know it.”
Looking ahead to the RNC, David Axelrod wrote, “What may seem like a humane, common sense agenda to most Americans this week will be cast by Trump and the Republicans as nothing more than job-crushing environmental regulations; amnesty for ‘illegals’ and open borders; an attack on police that invites urban violence and anarchy; onerous new taxation and a radical assault on the Second Amendment.”
Praise for Biden
And it’s not only about the election, Melvin wrote. “Delayed deliveries harm the public. It’s the customer who comes first thing in the morning to get a medicine they urgently need and can’t wait for. It’s your paycheck you need to put food on the table. It’s that new coat your child needs for winter. It’s your passport you’ve eagerly waited on. Your reading list for the new semester. Your 12th birthday card. Your new face mask. The ways the Postal Service affects our lives are endless.”
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