Ava Rosenow
National Political Conventions are ways that parties inform the nation about their agenda, give speeches, and provide information about their candidates. Right now, the Republican National convention (RNC) and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) are important events to watch if you want to stay educated and up to date. This year 23.8 million people tuned in to watch the RNC, and 24.6 million people watched the DNC. What were the differences and similarities between the RNC and DNC?
The Democratic National Convention had one central message: Trump needs to be voted out of office. Some of their speakers voted blue in the 2016 election, some did not, yet they all said the same thing, “unlike Trump, Joe Biden has common decency.” Beyond that, the Democrats shortly addressed plans for the future, which included to remodeling infrastructure, fighting climate change, and improving education. The majority of the convention was spent drilling into the audience’s heads that “Joe Biden is a man of…courage,” who has “compassion…[and] empathy,” and will reunite a broken America divided by Trump. The diverse set of speakers included Democrats, Republicans, women, men, members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as staples of the Democratic party such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. The speakers spoke over the 4 days of the convention, but they said very little regarding Joe Biden’s plans for the future, and a lot more about Donald Trump’s shortcomings.
The Republican National Convention, on the other hand, was spent doing the opposite. Their main message was that Trump has been doing a fabulous job these past 4 years, and Joe Biden will destroy the “American Dream” if elected. The Republicans touched a little bit more on plans for the future than the Democrats, discussing Trump’s supposed plans to build back the economy, construct more of the border wall, lower taxes, and create more jobs, but the main focus of the convention was villainizing Joe Biden and painting the past 4 years as a success story. In his acceptance speech, Trump spent more than 70 minutes describing how he is the best thing to happen to America, and he has done such things as “[taken] down human traffickers,” “deported 20,000 gang members,” “Obliterated…ISIS,” and “done more for the African-American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln.” Trump also excessively detailed all of the “Catastrophic betrayals and blunders” that Joe Biden has had. The speakers were less diverse party-wise than the Democrats, only having 2 Democrats compared to the DNC’s 6 Republicans, as well as being overwhelmingly male. They talked about how amazing Trump has been for the past 4 years, but did not point to direct evidence.
However, despite their contradictory opinions, both the Democrats and Republicans agreed on one thing: this election is one of the most important in American history.