The delegates at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee finally got to hear from the rapist last night. Of course, the rapist is a former president, elected when it was suspected he was a rapist, and now the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, which happened after he was adjudicated to be a sexual abuser by a jury, which the judge clarified really meant "rapist." The people there, from all 50 states, from various walks of life, primarily white, but not exclusively, were elated any time the rapist sat down in the auditorium to listen to other speakers during the convention. Well, more accurately, to fall asleep while others spoke.
A number of the delegates wore large white patches or bandages on their right ear. It was a way of showing support for the rapist because he had almost been shot and killed a few days before. We don't know why the would-be assassin targeted him, but it wasn't for being a rapist. One could wonder if the bullet had taken part of the rapist's ear off, would they have cut off parts of their own flesh in sympathy. It sadly does not seem out of the realm of possibility.
In his speech, the rapist, who was also convicted by a jury of and is awaiting sentencing for 34 felonies related to paying off a porn star who he had had an affair with, spoke vividly about the shooting. The rapist bragged how he had been "speaking very strongly, powerfully and happily." There was nothing humble in how the rapist talked about himself, despite what some in the press have said. There was no humility. He focused on how much people love him, so much so that even as "we had many bullets that were being fired," people didn't run away at the rally. Rather than attribute that to the fact that no one knew what was going on, the rapist said, "They just, this beautiful crowd, they didn’t want to leave me. They knew I was in trouble. They didn’t want to leave me. And you can see that love written all over their faces." The rapist was saying that, even with bullets "flying over us," the people didn't care about themselves or their loved ones. They only cared about the rapist. That's frankly disturbing, not "beautiful."
The rapist, who was fined $2 million for misuse of funds from a charity for children with cancer, then talked about Corey Comperatore, a fire chief who was at the rally and who was shot and killed protecting his family from the bullets. Comperatore's firefighter's jacket and helmet were on display on the stage, set up like a ghost was wearing them, and the rapist walked over to them and kissed the helmet with his rapist lips. It was, to anyone not inclined to love the rapist, creepy, at best. People in the crowd wept at what they saw as the rapist's kindness and decency. They wept when he talked about his own blood being spilled. "My god," they must have thought, "how much that rapist has suffered for me."
They also applauded and cheered in those first 15 minutes or so of the 93-minute speech as the rapist kept talking about "unity" and "In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens — we are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It seemed, for some in press, the rapist had really been changed by his near-death experience.
Of course, the rapist would never admit that he was one of the primary people dividing the country. The rapist has never admitted wrongdoing, no matter how many court cases go against him. He has almost never apologized for his failures. He dismisses dissent and disavows errors. The rapist has one true belief, and that belief is that he is owed...something, whether it's a fortune or the presidency or freedom. For some unknown reason, he believes the universe owes him, and, for some even more unknown reason, the universe keeps complying.
Yet, even as he was willing to give credit to whatever his rapist mind conceives of as "God" for that bullet missing him, he could only see it filtered through his narcissism. "Unity" means he doesn't budge an inch on anything, but everyone must unify under what he wants. When he said, "As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny," that destiny was his reelection. Join the rapist in transforming the nation or you are the problem, not the rapist, not the people who worship the rapist and have no problem at all electing the rapist.
Indeed, a few seconds after quoting the Pledge of Allegiance, the rapist, who owes a half-billion dollars in fines for various frauds, took us on a journey into his dark heart, explicitly stating that the only way for the United States to unify is to dismiss all of the cases against him, that his crimes should go unpunished. And then the rapist, who others called a "changed man," showed that he hadn't changed one whit.
Beyond his unchanging stances on immigration, taxes, foreign policy, and the economy, beyond his continuing to speak about his opponents in ways that invite further violence, the rapist did what all rapists do: he piled lie upon lie upon lie, building a mountain of lies that he could stand on and look down at everyone else. And there was no greater lie than his calls for everyone to come together.
After his litany of horrors and bizarre tangents and weird asides, all the words that alienate more than half the people who listen to him and that ended up boring even the most loyal of his groveling followers, the rapist, who, it should always be noted, is only at the convention because he is out on bail, veered back to his script. "We must now come together, rise above past differences. Any disagreements have to be put aside, and go forward united as one people, one nation, pledging allegiance to one great, beautiful — I think it’s so beautiful — American flag," he said.
Those words rang hollow. The only words that a rapist can say that wouldn't sound hollow would be "I'm sorry" and "I was wrong" and "I accept my punishment." When we speak of change and redemption, which is possible, even for a rapist, that is what we mean: acknowledge one's sins and ask forgiveness. Instead, we got to see an audience of fools cheer a rapist who is proudly, arrogantly irredeemable, and, thus, for those of us not cheering, will only ever be a filthy rapist.
