A Great GOP Convention—But With One Big Missed Opportunity

Dennis Prager / July 23, 2024

I have attended about a half-dozen national conventions, Republican and Democratic, and watched at least a dozen more. And I can say two things: 1) They have all generally bored me. 2) The 2024 Republican National Convention didn’t.

The RNC not only held my interest, it often moved me emotionally.

If you weren’t moved to tears by the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan during our preventably lethal withdrawal, you are way more stoic than I am. If you weren’t deeply moved by the tribute former President Donald Trump and the audience paid to Corey Comperatore, the firefighter killed at the Trump rally when he threw his body on top of his wife and daughter to protect them, again, you’re made of tougher stuff than I am.

I was also very moved by the cheers every time Israel was mentioned. Nothing better represents moral differences between the two parties than their attitudes toward Israel. Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether Israel is mentioned in a positive manner even one time at the Democratic National Convention next month.

But both Trump and the Republican Party made one big mistake—a mistake I noted on my radio show during the convention and have pointed out for decades.

Virtually all the convention speakers focused their attention on President Joe Biden. The audience did the same, as when it would chant, “Joe must go.”

For decades, I have pleaded with Republican office seekers to focus their attacks at least as much on the Democratic Party and the Left as on their opponent.

Not doing so at the convention has come back to bite them—just three days later. Now, “Joe did go.” So, all the time and effort devoted to attacking Biden was utterly wasted.

I have never understood why Republicans always concentrate their fire on their Democratic opponent while ignoring virtually any mention of the threat posed by the Democratic Party and the Left.

When the differences between Republican and Democrat were much less profound than they are now, it may have made sense for Republican candidates to focus their attention on their opponent. In 1952 and 1956, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower ran for president against Democrat Adlai Stevenson, and the Democratic Party did not pose an existential threat to America, it made sense for Eisenhower and the Republican Party to focus on Stevenson’s alleged deficiencies and Eisenhower’s alleged virtues.

But at least since the 1960s, this approach has made no sense.

The reason “Joe must go” was not because Joe is a man of defective character (though he is) or even because of his awful policies. The reason Biden did so much damage to America was not because he is Joe Biden but because he is a Democrat. And the Democratic Party has been taken over by the Left, which, unlike traditional liberalism, is destroying all that is good and special about our country.

It is completely irrelevant what Democrat runs for president—or governor or senator or representative. However nice they may personally be, as far as policies and values are concerned, they are all virtually identical.

In terms of policies and philosophy, how is Vice President Kamala Harris different from Joe Biden? How are Gavin Newsom, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or Pete Buttigieg different? Or for that matter, how different is the liberal-sounding, but left-wing governing, governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro (who may well be the Democrats’ vice presidential candidate, since he is from a politically vital state)?

To cite one example, Shapiro frequently spoke in support of school choice, and then he and his Democratic Party just nixed a bill in support of school scholarships (the term Pennsylvania uses for vouchers) for Pennsylvania’s poorest kids.

As RealClearPolitics reported five days ago:

Last year, Shapiro failed our most vulnerable kids by vetoing his promise to enact Lifeline Scholarships, which would have saved tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of children trapped in failing and unsafe schools. This year, the governor once again betrayed his word.

For 12 months, he’s called these scholarships ‘unfinished business.’ And yet the governor folded amid pressure from his party and the teacher unions. Despite bipartisan support in the Pennsylvania Senate, every Democrat in the House voted against Lifeline Scholarships, with nary a word to the contrary from the governor.

Shapiro stood with perhaps the most destructive left-wing institution in America, teachers unions, despite overwhelming support for school choice in Pennsylvania.

As the RealClearPolitics article noted: “New polling shows that 75% of Pennsylvanians still support Lifeline Scholarships, including 87% and 88% of Black and Hispanic voters, respectively. If only Shapiro would stand with them.”

In other words, who the Democrat running for office is doesn’t mean a damned thing. All that matters is that he or she is a Democrat. The left-wing party is the problem.

It’s not Joe who had to go. He’s now gone. And it makes not one bit of difference.

“The destructive, dangerous Democratic Party has to go.” That should be—and should have been for decades—the message of every Republican candidate for every office in the land.

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