Opinion Forget Melania Trump. The Republican party platform is the circus we need to watch.
Opinion Forget Melania Trump. The Republican party platform is the circus we need to watch.
Melissa Batchelor Warnke
July 19, 2016, 4:20 PM
Last night, the Internet exploded with allegations that Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was plagiarized from a 2008 Democratic National Convention speech by Michelle Obama. This morning, Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that "Melania Trump said ‘the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.' Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now.’”
Right.
We’ll soon find out who wrote the speech, and that will be another explosion. Here’s the problem with this schadenfreude moment: It doesn’t matter, not at all. No one writes 100% of their own speeches; they have professionals do it for them. Why would a nonpolitical person dragged into the political spotlight be the exception? And we already know Trump’s campaign is sloppy — it has been from the jump.
While everyone is talking about Melania, a person who doesn’t court exposure and is not running for our nation’s highest office, we’re taking our eye off the conversation we should be having: that the man who is running is a self-involved bully, and that the party platform he’s running on is deeply disturbing.
All right, so some of us have been having the self-involved bully conversation for a while now. But the 2016 Republican platform has been badly under-covered. It’s gotten some pickup here and there, but it’s far from water-cooler conversation. We’re talking about a 66-page policy document; I get that it’s less meme-able than a plagiarism gaffe. But stay with me for a moment. Because here’s what the official document — a document that, unlike Melania Trump, addresses numerous important national issues — says the Republican Party aims to do. I want to directly quote the platform’s language without interpretation, so that I can’t be accused of sensationalizing or misstating it.
The 2016 Republican platform has been badly under-covered.
On religion, the platform states: “Republicans believe the federal government, specifically the IRS, is constitutionally prohibited from policing or censoring speech based on religious convictions or beliefs, and therefore we urge the repeal of the Johnson Amendment.” The Johnson Amendment is a tax code revision that was made in 1954. It prohibits tax-exempt groups, such as churches, temples and synagogues, from making explicit political endorsements. It is a legal protection that reinforces the separation of church and state, a separation that is dictated by the Constitution’s 1st Amendment. The platform also states, “A good understanding of the Bible [is] indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry,” and it “support[s] the public display of the Ten Commandments.”
READ MORE: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/
Melissa Batchelor Warnke
July 19, 2016, 4:20 PM
Last night, the Internet exploded with allegations that Melania Trump’s Republican National Convention speech was plagiarized from a 2008 Democratic National Convention speech by Michelle Obama. This morning, Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee’s chief strategist, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that "Melania Trump said ‘the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.' Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now.’”
Right.
We’ll soon find out who wrote the speech, and that will be another explosion. Here’s the problem with this schadenfreude moment: It doesn’t matter, not at all. No one writes 100% of their own speeches; they have professionals do it for them. Why would a nonpolitical person dragged into the political spotlight be the exception? And we already know Trump’s campaign is sloppy — it has been from the jump.
While everyone is talking about Melania, a person who doesn’t court exposure and is not running for our nation’s highest office, we’re taking our eye off the conversation we should be having: that the man who is running is a self-involved bully, and that the party platform he’s running on is deeply disturbing.
All right, so some of us have been having the self-involved bully conversation for a while now. But the 2016 Republican platform has been badly under-covered. It’s gotten some pickup here and there, but it’s far from water-cooler conversation. We’re talking about a 66-page policy document; I get that it’s less meme-able than a plagiarism gaffe. But stay with me for a moment. Because here’s what the official document — a document that, unlike Melania Trump, addresses numerous important national issues — says the Republican Party aims to do. I want to directly quote the platform’s language without interpretation, so that I can’t be accused of sensationalizing or misstating it.
The 2016 Republican platform has been badly under-covered.
On religion, the platform states: “Republicans believe the federal government, specifically the IRS, is constitutionally prohibited from policing or censoring speech based on religious convictions or beliefs, and therefore we urge the repeal of the Johnson Amendment.” The Johnson Amendment is a tax code revision that was made in 1954. It prohibits tax-exempt groups, such as churches, temples and synagogues, from making explicit political endorsements. It is a legal protection that reinforces the separation of church and state, a separation that is dictated by the Constitution’s 1st Amendment. The platform also states, “A good understanding of the Bible [is] indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry,” and it “support[s] the public display of the Ten Commandments.”
READ MORE: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/
