quote:

...the startling news that the Republican National Committee has voted to simply reutilize the 2016 platform adopted four years ago in Cleveland. It’s part of a more general effort to minimize the “official business” portion of the upcoming convention, which will apparently be conducted in obscurity in the original Charlotte venue for the event, while shifting the focus to Trump’s acceptance speech, likely to be held in Jacksonville. Republicans debating platform planks cannot be allowed to distract attention from POTUS’s moment of glory, particularly since its actual platform is basically Ecce homo! (Behold the man! as the Gospel of John describes Pontius Pilate’s Latin introduction of Christ to the Jerusalem multitudes). Who needs policy statements that might handcuff the Very Stable Genius as he plots his erratic course across the landscape of American public life? In a very real sense Trump is the platform.

Still, as Aaron Blake of the Washington Post points out, the recycling of a four-year-old document creates some “awkward” juxtapositions of old language with new circumstances. For one thing, it’s full of attacks on “the administration,” meaning Obama’s, which is a bit moot now and a bit jarring in the hands of “the administration’s” current owner-occupiers. And there are also policy positions that seem a mite embarrassing in light of Trump’s actual record:

“The huge increase in the national debt demanded by and incurred during the current Administration has placed a significant burden on future generations.”


“The current Administration’s refusal to work with Republicans took our national debt from $10 trillion to nearly $19 trillion today. Left unchecked, it will hit $30 trillion by 2026.”

“The current Administration has exceeded its constitutional authority, brazenly and flagrantly violated the separation of powers, sought to divide America into groups and turn citizen against citizen.”

“Our most urgent task as a Party is to restore the American people’s faith in their government by electing a president who will enforce duly enacted laws, honor constitutional limits on executive authority, and return credibility to the Oval Office.”

“The next president must restore the public’s trust in law enforcement and civil order by first adhering to the rule of law himself.”

“The current Administration has abandoned America’s friends and rewarded its enemies.”

“The President has refused to defend or enforce laws he does not like, used executive orders to enact national policies in areas constitutionally reserved solely to Congress, made unconstitutional ‘recess’ appointments to Senate-confirmed positions, directed regulatory agencies to overstep their statutory authority, and failed to consult Congress regarding military action overseas.”

“We further affirm that courts should interpret laws as written by Congress rather than allowing executive agencies to rewrite those laws to suit administration priorities.”

“The current President and his allies on Capitol Hill have used those agencies as a superlegislature, disregarding the separation of powers, to declare as law what they could not push through the Congress.”

“The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government.”