Mike Pence’s white American fantasy land will never be an option for most: columnist
Wednesday evening's speech by Vice President Mike Pence was nothing more than a fantasy land for rich whites. All of the challenges that Americans are facing this year didn't seem that serious to him, according to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
In a Washington Post column Thursday, Eugene Robinson explained that Pence not only white-washed history he presents an image that is far from the reality for most.
"What 176,000-plus deaths from COVID-19? What devastating shutdown and recession? What double-digit unemployment? What mass uncertainty over whether and how to open the schools? What shocking police killings of African Americans? What long-overdue reckoning with systemic racism?" asked Robinson about the vice president's speech. He asked what world Pence could possibly be living in, because it certainly isn't reality.
"Pence sounded as though he lived in some kind of fantasyland that perhaps had encountered a few tiny little bumps in the road," wrote Robinson. "His party has spent the week claiming to represent 'the common man,' but Pence spoke as though he knew next to nothing about the daunting challenges that Americans are having to deal with every day. The most he could muster was an acknowledgment that 'we’re passing through a time of testing,' as though he were consoling a motorist after a fender bender."
He offered "our prayers" for those in the path of one of the most powerful hurricanes to the area ever. He acknowledged people had died from the coronavirus, but then claimed that American's won't be safe under Joe Biden. He not only ignored systemic racism, he flat out denied its existence, blasting the protesters demanding justice.
He spoke from Ft. McHenry, a site of the War of 1812, where 150,000 fewer people died than the COVID-19 pandemic. Robinson blasted the Republicans for turning hallowed ground like Ft. McHenry and the White House into being theirs instead of belonging to the people.
And at a time when Pence is supposed to be serving as the head of the Coronavirus Task Force, he welcomed elderly audience members to take part in his mask-free speech. "One might have expected that he, of all speakers, would at least try to deal with that crisis substantively. But one would have been wrong," wrote Robinson.
Meanwhile, after being in office for three-and-a-half years, Trump and his campaign are trying to paint him as some kind of "outsider" instead of the establishment he purports to oppose.
"It’s pure razzle-dazzle, designed to create the illusion of blunt effectiveness — and distract from the administration’s dismal, tragic failures," said Robinson.
While Pence railed against protesters, denied racism and proclaimed "law and order," the family of Jacob Blake was suffering and the families of those shot by a 17-year-old militia member attempting to carry out Trump's "law and order" were mourning their losses.
"I wasn’t surprised," said Robinson. "Earlier in the evening, the convention brought out Michael McHale, president of the National Association of Police Organizations, to describe Biden (who wrote the 1994 crime bill) and vice-presidential nominee Kamala D. Harris (a former prosecutor) as somehow anti-police — and call Trump “the most pro-law-enforcement president we’ve ever had.” Be afraid, America, be very afraid."
All it did was reveal "Trump's own naked fear," he wrote.
Robinson closed by saying that Trump along with the GOP is pulling out all the stunts they have because they know that according to the polls, people have learned not to trust this president.
"They are losing this election. Badly. And deep down, I hope, at least some of them realize that defeat is what they richly deserve," Robinson said.
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