The 2020 Republican National Convention is facing numerous hurdles in the face of the national health crisis.
The Republican National Committee voted to scale back its convention events in Charlotte, North Carolina. President Donald Trump has moved his nomination acceptance speech out of North Carolina all together, opting for a venue that won't observe crowd minimization or social distancing measures.
For the sake of efficiency, the Republican National Committee also voted to keep its original 2016 platform.
That may have been a mistake.
In addition to retaining its opposition to issues like same sex marriage, the official platform enshrines some other language they failed to update.
The 2016 platform was written when Barack Obama was the outgoing President, so much of the language in the platform laments "the wrong direction" they believed the United States has taken.
By adopting the platform in 2020, it reads as though they're talking about Donald Trump.
Some of the greatest hits read:
"The current Administration has exceeded its constitutional authority, brazenly and flagrantly violated the separation of powers, sought to divide America into groups and turn citizen against citizen."
"In obedience to that principle, we condemn the current Administration's unconstitutional expansion into areas beyond those specifically enumerated, including bullying of state and local governments in matters ranging from voter identification (ID) laws to immigration, from healthcare programs to land use decisions, and from forced education curricula to school restroom policies."
"The current Administration, and particularly its EPA, seems not to care."
"The current Administration has abandoned America's friends and rewarded its enemies."
A lot of the criticisms of the "current administration" could be applied to...well, the current administration.
Besides, if Republicans are using the same platform as 2016, wouldn't it be hard to argue that they've accomplished anything?
Trump isn't going to like this.
This should be interesting.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram