PHILADELPHIA — Dozens of speakers invoked God. A few of them went on at length about Jesus Christ. On Thursday night, convention officials distributed large American flags throughout the crowd for delegates to wave while a dozen military officers stood on stage behind a retired general talking tough words against the Islamic State.
When the officers marched on stage, Democrats even played marching drums.
One speaker waved a Constitution on stage. Barack Obama invoked the Shining City on a Hill. Democrats held a moment of silence for fallen police officers.
Democrats talked tough on Russia (four years after laughing off they idea that Putin was a pre-eminent global threat to the U.S.), and cast their rival as soft on Russia.
A huge chunk of the prime-time programming was about Sept. 11. It was like a George W. Bush/Rudy Giuliani mashup.
Democratic conventions always have lots of patriotism, but this year they put it in a higher gear.
Josh Barro put it well on Twitter: “The DNC is co-opting Republican tropes while maintaining Democratic ones because there is now only one political party for grown-ups.”
Hillary Clinton even gave a speech about the danger of giving one person too much power.
It’s just one example of how Republicans, by nominating Trump, has handed tons of material to the Democrats. They’ve made it easy for Democrats to claim the mantles of American exceptionalism, patriotism, military, police, and even religiosity.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
