Kristin Urquiza lost her father this year to the coronavirus. She achieved viral fame later when she penned an obituary blaming President Trump.
On Monday, Urquiza made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention, where she leveraged her father’s death into a full-throated sales pitch for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
For national media, the obscene spectacle of a woman propping up her dead father for political purposes was the highpoint of the evening, as journalists and commentators alike were left mesmerized, excited, and deeply, deeply impressed by the woman’s speech.
“My dad, Mark Anthony Urquiza, should be here today, but he isn’t,” the dead man’s daughter said Monday evening. “He had faith in Donald Trump. He voted for him, listened to him, believed him and his mouthpieces when they said that coronavirus was under control and going to disappear … So, in late May, after the stay-at-home order was lifted in Arizona, my dad went to a karaoke bar with his friends.”
She added, “A few weeks later, he was put on a ventilator. And after five agonizing days, he died alone in the ICU with a nurse holding his hand. My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life.”
Urquiza’s speech was grotesque. It was unseemly. It was patently self-serving and political, and all at the expense of her late father. The speech was also a huge hit with the Democratic base and members of the political press, particularly Urquiza’s line about “preexisting conditions.”
CNN politics reporter Chris Cillizza said Urquiza had the “most powerful moment” of the night. The New York Times’s chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, for example, called it the “most damning line so far.” Vox co-founder Ezra Klein said it was the “most devastating line” of the entire evening. Politico magazine columnist Jeff Greenfield called it “the most powerful presentation of the night.”
“What a moment,” said PBS News reporter Yamiche Alcindor.
Urquiza’s speech blaming the president for her father’s death earned her more than just positive off-hand remarks from journalists and political commentators. It also earned her a great deal of glowing news coverage.
The New York Times called her address an “impassioned speech.” Good Morning America reported Urquiza “had a big message for voters.” The Guardian characterized it as a “powerful DNC address.” Vox said the “most scathing indictments” of the Trump administration came from Urquiza. USA Today called it a “powerful” and “searing rebuke” of Trump. CNN reported that she “excoriated” the president in “a pointed speech.”
Urquiza’s address Monday at the Democratic National Convention concluded with a blunt endorsement of Biden.
“The coronavirus has made it clear that there are two Americas: the America that Donald Trump lives in and the America that my father died in,” she said. “Enough is enough. Donald Trump may not have caused the coronavirus, but his dishonesty and his irresponsible actions made it so much worse.”
She concluded, going all-in for the Democratic ticket, “One of the last things that my father said to me was that he felt betrayed by the likes of Donald Trump. And so, when I cast my vote for Joe Biden, I will do it for my dad.”
In a normal, healthy world, the sight of a woman abusing her father’s death for the sake of politics would leave everyone unfortunate enough to witness the act feeling dirty and nauseated. But we do not live in a normal world. We live in the one where our elite commentariat believes it is a “powerful” statement, deserving of at least three fire emojis, for a daughter to use her dead father as a political prop.
Trump is not the illness. He is just the symptom.
