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Good evening. It's Wednesday, July 17.
Tonight, JD Vance, the 39-year-old first-term Republican senator from Ohio and the Republican vice-presidential nominee, will take the stage at the Republican National Convention to deliver what will certainly be his most watched and most important speech in his short political career. The symbolism is obvious: by choosing the first-ever radical candidate to appear on a major party national ticket, Trump is clearly signaling where he thinks the future of his MAGA movement lies, and in whose hands he envisions its continuation.
However, not everyone in his party is happy with Trump's choice, to put it very mildly. Two separate wings of the Republican Party – the neocons and war hawks from the Bush-Cheney era, as well as the Reaganite believers in corporatist economic policies – are making their opposition to Vance and, indeed, their anger over his selection, very clear. It has long been obvious that, unlike the Democratic Party – which is almost entirely homogenized, unified in lockstep – the Trump era has ushered in a vibrant and sometimes bitter and, I think, healthy intra-party dispute in the Republican Party over the direction of what is called “the conservative movement,” what updates its needs from the past, as well as both the domestic and especially foreign policy that party ought to be pursuing. The negative reaction to Vance, among some of the worst and most destructive factions in the country are highly illustrative of what the Republican Party had been, why Donald Trump succeeded so successfully in 2016 by running against it and where some people – such as JD Vance and obviously Donald Trump – are trying to take the party in the future.
Then, since October 7, we have been continuously documenting here on the show the excitement and enthusiasm on much of the pro-Israel right for so many of the values, the tactics and the weapons they long came to despise. As the sole providence of the “woke” left. In the name of protecting Israel, they have caused the censorship, firing, legal restrictions and other punishments imposed on American citizens who are simply harsh critics of Israel and the U.S.’s financing of its wars and/or supporters of the Palestinian cause. Countless people since October 7, in media, government, business and academia, have lost their jobs or otherwise been punished for the crime of expressing opposition to Israel and to the acts of that foreign government. But now, quite predictably, those tactics on the part of that sector of the right are starting to expand into other areas of other issues and starting to find quite a dark expression. Anybody who – in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt on Donald Trump – publicly lamented that the bullet missed him, in other words, people who were wishing violent death to Donald Trump or saying it was deserved and it would be good for the country, are obviously expressing a despicable and twisted sentiment that goes without saying. And to the extent those doing that are people who wield some sort of significant influence or power in this country, demands for them to be held accountable for such statements will obviously be reasonable. That's what it means to wield public power and influence.
That is not what's happening. Just as has been true of the efforts by the pro-Israel right to punish ordinary people, people with no power or influence for their speech since October 7, the campaign to punish people for expressing such demented thoughts about Trump is being aimed at those who wield no power. People who are hourly-wage workers for giant retailers, low-wage cashiers at places like Home Depot and the like. And so, I think it provokes the question, is it ever just or noble to target the least powerful and economically advantaged people in our society for the crime of simply saying something that was ill-advised, untoward, or even reprehensible after they get home from a 12-hour shift at a miserable job and they post something like that to twenty or so of their friends on Facebook? Should their lives be destroyed over that, their job taken away, rendered unemployable, their reputations permanently marred? That is what some on the right are actually doing and, although we certainly agree that the opinions they're targeting are, as we said, quite repugnant, we really want to examine both the wisdom and ethics of aiming those weapons at ordinary citizens who have zero power influence of any kind – in fact, the least amount of influence of power in our country.
Finally, the independent roving reporter Michael Tracy continues to rove around the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he is manically conducting more and more interviews of influential Republican politicians and others who are present at the Convention. For our program tonight, we have his interviews with people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Reps Andy Barr and Brian Mast, as well as Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
