Day: August 24, 2020

Briefings

Background Briefing: August 24, 2020

On By gram

 

The Trump No-Platform Know Nothing Party Convention

We begin with the first day and night of the Republican National Convention which according to the lineup for the next four nights is a celebration of the Trump Party and the Trump family many of whom will be the keynote speakers. Joining us is Sidney Blumenthal the author of a number of bestsellers, the latest of which is All the Powers on Earth, The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln 1856 – 1869. He joins us to discuss his article at The Guardian, “How Donald Trump cancelled the Republican Party” and to point out that since this Trump Party convention has no party platform, the last time that happened in our history was when the Whig Party convention of 1852 had no platform and the Whig Party quickly collapsed afterward to be taken over by the Know Nothing Party. Since the modern day version of the know nothings are visible in the QAnon movement and the Tea Party movement whose stars like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz are featured speakers tonight, we speculate whether the modern day Know Nothings are the future of the former GOP, now the Trump Party led by Donald Trump and his family.

 

QAnon Previews the Biden Resistance in Weekend Demonstrations

Then with more than 200 so-called Freedom for the Children rallies held across America over the weekend which were the QAnon cult’s hijacking of the sex trafficking issue to put forth their sick belief system that the Democratic Party and the “Deep State” are running child sex trafficking rings along with drinking children’s blood, consorting with demons and worshipping Satan, we discuss how Trump has invited these people out from under a rock and mainstreamed them. Will Bunch, an award-winning national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer joins us to discuss his latest article “QAnon giving America a scary look at what a ‘Biden resistance’ would look like in 2021“.

 

The Author of Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism

Then finally we speak with Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies and the author of the new book out soon, Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism. He joins us to discuss the embrace of illiberal democracy by many Republicans and especially Trump, and how much the Trump Party is on a path towards fascism, which if he gets a second term, would surely spell the end of America’s democratic experiment.