Editor's Note: Steve Schmidt is one of the founding members of the Lincoln Project. He is a communications and public affairs strategist who has worked on several Republican campaigns, including John McCain's 2008 bid for the White House, and he is now a regular political contributor to MSNBC.
On Friday, Schmidt wrote an honest evaluation of the Republican National Convention on his Twitter feed over 14 posts. MaxNewsToday has assembled the tweets and reprinted them for our ongoing segment, Schmidt Storm. His tweetstorm has been edited for clarity and accuracy.
The desecration of the White House for Trump’s perverse political use is an abomination.
The question of whether voters care about the Hatch Act is beside the point. It is the law. Trump’s convention was a pageant of breathtaking dishonesty, racial incitement and demagoguery. It was an exposition of lawlessness, where the powerful symbols of State that belong to all of us were profoundly abused in the name of Trump’s personal vanity and political narcissism. The playing of Hail to the Chief and the use of United States Marine Corps sentries attired in dress uniforms for political purposes was grotesque.
Make no mistake about what Trump declared over these last four days. In essence, he said I AM THE TRUTH, I AM THE LAW, I AM THE STATE. The Republican Party’s platform has but one demand. One requirement. Obedience and loyalty to Trump. It is the definition of a cult of personality. This cult of personality is sustained by a vast, disaggregated and pernicious propaganda network that includes misinformation incepted and distributed by Russian Intelligence Services and other state actors, Fox News, OAN, Breitbart, a rancid collection of pundits and talk-radio hosts, Internet trolls, QAnon and a thousand Facebook sites that teem and boil with conspiracy theories, extremism, menace, racism, anti-semitism and misogyny.
All of it together represents a grave danger to our national unity and democracy. There is a war being waged on truth, and it turns out truth, like the concepts of duty and patriotism, was surrounded by many faithless friends.
The complicity through both deed and silence of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and so many more in service to the maliced alternate reality of Trumpism seen this week isn’t just disgraceful, it’s tragic and deadly.
The RNC began with the appearance of the contemptible McCloskeys. Their awfulness was experienced by the children of the Synagogue who have the misfortune of worshipping God next door to the McCloskeys. The children established bee hives to curate honey for the Jewish holidays. The hives were accidentally placed inches over the property line. McCloskey took an axe to them.
The only reason they were on television this week was for pointing weapons at Black people who were peacefully marching for justice and equality on their street. Their message speaks for itself. Their words had meaning. Matt Gaetz's words had meaning. Kimberly Guilfoyle's messianic blatherings of devotion had meaning.
A 17-year-old heard the message. He lived in Illinois. He sat in the front row of a Trump rally. He heard it all. He took it all in. He was poisoned by it. He was converted by it. He was radicalized by Trumpism the same way young men in the Middle East are radicalized by extremism.
He drove to Wisconsin with his AR-15 to join the fight. He became a killer there. We ignore this radicalization at our great peril. There is indisputable cause and effect. We do not have the luxury to pretend there is not. This was another week of needless suffering and death in America. Thousands are dead since the gavel was struck Monday. More families are shattered, and more businesses are shuttered. That is the reality. School openings are in chaos, and there is no plan.
This week was another putrid chapter in this ghastly Trump era. America knows the truth, and the truth is this. Trump is untrustworthy and dishonest. He is a liar. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone but himself. He doesn’t care about your family or mine. He doesn’t care for our troops, and he doesn’t care for America. He lacks humanity and decency and possesses none of the noble virtues that built our nation.
It is all on the line in November. Vote.