As just about everybody probably knows by now, the First Felon has demanded that North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper ‘guarantee‘ that there will be no restrictions upon gathering during the GOP convention in Charlotte next August.
President Trump on Monday threatened to yank the Republican National Convention from Charlotte, N.C., where it is scheduled to be held in August, accusing the state’s Democratic governor of being in a “shutdown mood” that could prevent a fully attended event.
The president tweeted that he had “LOVE” for North Carolina, a swing state that he won in 2016, but he added that without a “guarantee” from the governor, Roy Cooper, that the event could be held at full capacity, “we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space.”
Here are the tweets.
…full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space. Plans are being….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
…to find, with all of the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site. This is not something I want to do. Thank you, and I LOVE the people of North Carolina!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
Several thoughts, in no particular order:
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This is empty bluster. Anybody who has ever organized a wedding knows that months of planning are needed to put together even a modest-sized event involving a few dozens of people from disparate locations. To suppose that he can summarily move the convention without major disruption of the event is preposterous on its face; some of the hotel and restaurant reservations were made, literally, more than a year ago.
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Cooper cannot responsibly satisfy Trump’s demand. Indeed, this state’s confirmed number of cases is still going up.
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Trump’s demand is irresponsible and hypocritical. After all, the First Felon has encouraged defiance of lockdown orders and, by his (very bad) example, continues to flout his contempt for the minimal steps needful to arresting the spread of Covid-19.
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Undoubtedly, Trump knows that the GOP convention is certain to be the target of anti-Trump demonstrations, that his popularity is in decline, and that the best people in his party feel some ambiguity about being seen as close to him.
I am sure that Trump would prefer to forgo the bother of the convention and simply be anointed by acclamation. After all, it’s hardly as if he has any interest in associating with the Republican delegates; he despises them. So I suspect this is theater for the morons who love to see their boy acting tough, but that it tracks pretty closely to his own preferences. There will probably be a gloomy, desultory fizzle of a convention, in Charlotte, in rightful anticipation of November’s beheading.