Sad: No One Wants to Go to Trump's COVID Convention

[babylonsister]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/no-one-wants-to-go-to-trump-republican-convention-covid-florida

Republican National Convention
Sad: No One Wants to Go to Trump’s COVID Convention
Several top Republicans say they won’t attend the Republican convention in Florida. “Everybody just assumes no one is going,” said one.
By Eric Lutz
July 14, 2020


Last month, Donald Trump promised to return to the campaign trail in a big way. Close to a million people had requested tickets for his comeback rally, he bragged, necessitating accommodations for an overflow crowd. In the end, only about 6,000 people turned out and the president aired his grievances before a sea of empty seats. Trump was infuriated and embarrassed. But at least a president who thrives on pageantry had his Republican convention to look forward to.

Now, however, even that event seems to be falling apart. With coronavirus taking a particularly hard toll on Florida, the host of next month’s shindig, a growing number of prominent Republicans are announcing plans to stay home. Already a handful of Republicans had announced they would not attend, either because of the threat of infection or, in the case of Mitt Romney, because his criticism of the president has made him a persona non grata. On Monday, the New York Times reported four more planned no-shows: Senators Roy Blunt and Pat Roberts and Florida Representatives Francis Rooney. Even more appear to be on the fence about the whole thing, including Marco Rubio of Florida; John Thune, the number two Republican in the Senate; and Liz Cheney, who has been increasingly critical of Trump as of late. “Everybody just assumes no one is going,” Illinois Representative Darin LaHood, an honorary state co-chair of the Trump campaign who has RSVP’d no to the convention, told the Times.

The Republican convention has already been upended once by the pandemic, relocated to Florida after Charlotte, North Carolina, couldn’t guarantee a gathering space for thousands of people. Democrats pushed their Milwaukee convention back from July to August, but even plans for smaller satellite gatherings seem uncertain with the coronavirus situation going from bad to worse. Trump, by contrast, clearly resents the prospect of missing out on a chance to throw a big party in his honor, and has pushed for the event to go forward, virus be damned. But reality may get in the way: Jacksonville now mandates face masks and other precautions, which will improve public safety but undermine the image Trump had hoped to project of a country on the other side of the crisis. Floridians themselves are unenthused at the prospect of playing host. A surge of new infections is making many Republicans, including Chuck Grassley, squeamish about attending. And Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, along with the escalation of his racist culture wars, may lead some vulnerable Republicans to want to keep their distance; Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both noted for their “disappointment” with the president, have each said they do not plan to attend.

Trump’s true believers have no compunction about potentially sacrificing their lives for the sake of the president’s ego. “It’s a risk you have to take,” Morton Blackwell, an 80-year-old RNC member from Virginia, told the Times. “You take risks every day. You drive down the street and a cement truck could crash into you. You can’t not do what you have to do because of some possibility of a bad result.” But many Republicans are less cavalier; even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has wavered about the idea of having a convention at all. “We will have to wait and see how things look in late August to determine if we can safely convene that many people,” he said last week.

It’s not just COVID gumming up the works. Republicans are scrambling to raise money and plan the event on a short timeline, a daunting task made more challenging by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is said to be sabotaging RNC fundraising efforts because of a dispute with his former campaign manager, now an informal adviser to convention planners. The governor’s allies denied any bad blood. But the increasingly dire situation in his state has nevertheless forced DeSantis into a bind. Giving Trump what he wants will likely further erode his standing with constituents who want him to take the virus seriously. But forcing public safety measures on the convention will almost certainly draw even more ire from the president. As Mitch Ceasar, Florida's former Democratic Party chairman, told NBC News, “I wouldn't want to be on that call to Trump.”

[dflprincess]

1. These are the same people who think

kids should go back to school.

[Happyhippychick]

2. If Trump accepts his parties nomination and no one is there to hear it

Is he truly the candidate?

[SWBTATTReg]

3. republicans fighting among themselves and they want America to listen to them and their ...

values? Hypocrites. Under their guidance, tens of thousands of Americans are dead and more will be dead by the time this epidemic is over and done with.

People see those cretins coming out of the woodwork too, right and left, mouthing off their bigotry, ranting and raving, truly looking really awful in their displayed hate for all to see.

At least good people are seeing these creeps for what they really are, and thus, they're losing their jobs, they are being flamed online and offline, and they're finding out that their so called 'audience of fellow creeps' has crept back down into their holes.

[bluedye33139]

4. He literally doesn't understand how planning works

He thought that he could cancel the Charlotte convention by decree and effortlessly decree a new convention in Florida.

All of the money had already been tied up in Charlotte. All of the money had been spent. People who hold contracts for the RNC convention in Charlotte will still get paid, and there will be no one there.

This is the 758, 342nd example of how he doesn't understand reality or the human world.

[Silent3]

6. Trump doesn't understand that the idea of "contract"...

...could possibly mean anything binding on himself.

[Silent3]

5. You can bet that if their own asses weren't on the line...

...all of these Republicans would be gung ho about a convention that only put other people’s live at risk for the glory of Dear Leader.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. You couldn't pay me to go there

[Nevilledog]

8. Not even without COVID-19.

[Takket]

9. that's a shame

[Initech]

10. SAD!

[smirkymonkey]

11. It will be a complete disaster.

And we will all be laughing our asses off.