The third night of the Republican Convention was supposed to feature vice presidential nominee (and possible future acting president) Mike Pence. Instead Ted Cruz stole the show by refusing to endorse Donald Trump. Cruz advised people to vote their conscience, which had become the the slogan of those at the convention who wanted to open up the nomination to vote for others. He was booed last night, but if Trump loses badly, he might also be in a position to look like the smart one in the party by November, in contrast to those who backed Trump.
Allowing Cruz to do this prior to Pence’s acceptance speech looks like another act of poor convention planning on Trump’s part–although he did turn the situation to his advantage in the convention hall by entering before Cruz finished speaking. If he was going to have Cruz speak, it might have made more sense to do it the first night (when Clinton is allowing Sanders to speak), or perhaps the second night when all sorts of wacko speeches were already being given.
Cruz also spoke a lot about freedom. Unfortunately he primarily supports the right of conservative Christians to impose their religious views on others.
All the noise following Cruz’s speech distracted from Mike Pence’s speech (fact checking here) and as a result, even after last night not very many people know who Mike Pence is. Seth Meyers took a closer look at Pence in the video above.
Despite the social conservatism from Ted Cruz and Mike Pence, The New York Post reports, Male escorts are making crazy money at the RNC:
It’s been a great week for gay escorts in Cleveland.
Male prostitutes contacted by The Post said business is booming and Republican National Convention attendees — most of them married — are clamoring for their services…
The clientele has included mostly married white men between the ages of 40 and 50, said another escort who’s seen eight johns so far…
“The Republicans have a lot of delegates in the closet, let’s put it that way.”
But ladies of the night weren’t reaping the same benefits.
When contacted by The Post, females for hire said they’re making much less money than normal.
Mark Cuban was initially pro-Trump, but has changes is mind. He joined Stephen Colbert in taking the gloves off to bash Donald Trump last night.
If Hillary Clinton is like Lucifer, at least per Ben Carson, Donald Trump is Voldemort. A study has showed that reading Harry Potter books leads to people being more opposed to Donald Trump:
A new study to be published in a special 2016 election issue of PS: Political Science and Politics finds that reading Harry Potter books leads Americans to take a lower opinion of Donald Trump. In fact, the more books the participants read, the greater the effect…
“Because Trump’s political views are widely viewed as opposed to the values espoused in the Harry Potter series,” Mutz writes in the study, “exposure to the Potter series may play an influential role in influencing how Americans respond to Donald Trump.”
To test that explanation for the Harry Potter effect, Mutz focused on three core themes from Harry Potter: The value of tolerance and respect for difference; opposition to violence and punitiveness; and opposition to authoritarianism.
In each case, Mutz points out, Donald Trump’s messages are opposed to the lessons conveyed in Harry Potter and closer to that of his enemy, Lord Voldemort. Examples abound throughout the series:
Harry and his friends advocate for oppressed house-elves and oppose Lord Voldemort’s quest for blood purity among wizards. Harry himself is of mixed wizard/muggle (non-wizard) ancestry. Trump, by contrast, has called for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration and made offensive comments about outgroups of all kinds, including women, Mexicans, Asians, and those with disabilities.
The Harry Potter series promotes non-violent means of conflict resolution; while Voldemort is willing to kill many times, the books’ protagonists consistently avoid unnecessary curses for killing, torture, or controlling others. Harry even saves the life of his Voldemort-aligned nemesis, Draco Malfoy. Trump, by contrast, has spoken widely about his fondness for waterboarding, and advocates the killing of terrorists’ families as a means of deterrence. He has praised his followers’ acts of violence against protesters at his rallies.
The Harry Potter protagonists work against authoritarian characters in the books. “As does Voldemort,” Mutz writes, “Trump portrays himself as a strongman who can bend others to his will, be they the Chinese government or terrorists.”
…Mutz’s data also shows that each Harry Potter book read also raised a person’s evaluations of Muslims and homosexuals, two groups chosen to gauge the respondent’s tolerance and respect for difference. Harry Potter also appeared to encourage opposition to punitive policies — gauged by responses to questions about the use of torture, killing terrorists, and support for the death penalty — though the effect size was small.
But reading Harry Potter also engendered opposition to Trump in ways that surpassed the effect of these two themes.
“It may simply be too difficult for Harry Potter readers to ignore the similarities between Trump and the power-hungry Voldemort,” she writes.
Going into the final night of the convention, Donald Trump has also received a lot of criticism for his comments on foreign policy in an interview with The New York Times in which, once again, he shows how little interest he has in facts or details.
I other news, Michelle Obama played Carpool Karaoke with James Corden and, in followup of yesterday’s post, Roger Ailes has left Fox following the charges of sexual harassment. Apparently at News Corp you can get away with trying to screw American democracy, but not Megyn Kelley.