Yes. AND he wants the masses of cash that he can charge if the thing is held at one of his properties.* And we are talking about MASSES of cash.
It won’t be Mar-a-Lago. That’s the one at which he can charge $100,000-a-head in membership fees. He’s not going to let the rabble from Arkansas and Wyoming in there for small beans. No, it will probably be Doral, in the Miami area—a much less up-scale property that’s really struggling. That’s the one he wanted to host the G7.
If they were in that much trouble in May 2019, you can imagine what the balance sheet looks like now.
Trump could rake in, literally, millions, by having the Republican Convention there. I wouldn’t bet against the likelihood that this is the plan, of which step 1 is harassing the Democratic governor of North Carolina, and step $$$$$$ is inevitable.
Agreed. There may be contractural issues that need to be adjudicated in court.
Now, if you take the politics out of it, there are studies showing that, what with police costs, having one of these conventions in your city has negative economic benefit. That was true even before there were costs associated with likely increases in COVID-19.
I do have a selfish concern that if they really have it normally in some place like Miami, the delegates will be offered a real anti-viral drug, maybe Remdesivir, that will be in short supply and unavailable if needed after someone in my cautious family gets sick.
Yes - the conventions require huge amounts of very expensive security, and in this economic climate I expect if Agent Orange tries to back out and find another venue, he may very well be out of luck. Pretty much all states and cities are looking at deficit budgets - in some cases some pretty large ones - with no guarantee of any further help from the feds. They aren’t going to want to take the risk of making things even worse.
I think in this case, Cooper has most of the leverage. If says no dice to a freewheeling convention, that might piss off some of the freedumbers here, but so far Cooper’s been leading by a fair amount in the polls over his nutbar opponent (who is also unfortunately our Lt. Gov.) and they weren’t going to vote for him anyway. Most of them don’t live in Charlotte either.
Since we have no way to know how things will be looking in August, I think he’s safe saying no for now, with a caveat that if things start to look better they can revisit the issue. Turning a no into a yes is pretty much always easier.
Just imagine a far-right conservative Burning Man style hippie jamboree! Can you imagine that?
Oh wait a minute! It’s entirely plausible! Who here remembers Dan’s Bake Sale (May 1993)?
Depending on which part of the above-linked page you read, either 8,000 or 35,000 right-wing die-hard Republicans showed up! It was truly the Right Wing Woodstock.
Okay, I guess I’m still wondering just who should care about this and why?
A convention brings lots of commerce and $$$ to the hosting city, along with traffic jams, streets and whole neighborhoods shut down for security, vast overtime for local cops (who thinks the RNC will actually pay for that?) and lots of news coverage. So the city and state may care if they lose that.
The internet is alive with posters saying things like “Grifter Trump going to hold it at one of his properties and rake in the dough!” But, whose dough would that be? Do the American taxpayers pay for the party conventions? Or are party conventions basically a private shindig put on by the Party at Party expense?
If the Republican National Committee agrees to put this on at Trump’s Doral, or his golf course in Scotland, is there any legal or ethical problem with that? Or is that just strictly the RNC’s private business?
There are probably some sunk costs already, come to think of it. And a lot of possible alternate locations not just not having prepared but actually having planned on NO big shindigs for this summer and redirected resources accordingly, so it may end up being a slapdash affair even if finally happening in CLT, not that this would dissuade this bunch. I have my reservations on how much of a boon these really are for city economies, it is often chosen more as a way to rally the region.
OTOH Wingnut Burning Man would sure be something to see!
Nah, we’ve already had our bonus disaster for this year (the quakes have been continuing).
I have to point out in any thread that exults in the karmic justice of Republicans infecting themselves with COVID… although COVID-deniers (or COVID-encouragers) may deserve some of this suffering, they are certain to affect children, elders, and random passers-by who don’t deserve any of it, and they are certain to consume medical resources needed by others who didn’t choose to expose themselves to COVID.
I’m part of a group that wanted to meet in an area in August, meet by the thousands. It’s called Gencon, an enormous gathering of gamers that’s happened in Indianapolis every August for a couple of decades. It’s a huge economic event for the city center.
Here’s what the Gencon organizers didn’t do:
-They didn’t negotiate with Indiana’s governor over Twitter.
-They didn’t mention his party affiliation.
-They didn’t blow smoke up Hoosiers’ asses about how much they love their great state.
-They didn’t demand information immediately about what would be happening with pandemic response in three months.
Here’s what they did:
-They canceled Gencon, recognizing that their responsibility toward their constituents and toward the community as a whole was to not have a giant event in the middle of a pandemic.
You can’t turn Trump’s response into something reasonable by taking the politics out of it. It’s all part of his death cult ideology. He’s 100% attempting to increase human sacrifice, as a byproduct of his self-aggrandizement.
Trump can just have nukes dropped into any hurricanes that form. Bonus: the radioactive fallout can help disinfect people that may be carrying the virus.
I don’t think conventions are huge moneymakers for the host city. Sure, they bring in some revenue but this is nowhere near in the same league as the Super Bowl. So the NC governor was asked to guarantee conditions that he has no way of knowing will exist. The only logical thing to do is say no, we can’t guarantee we can safely have thousands of people meet safely any more than we can guarantee sunshine. No responsible public servant could guarantee that in three months a large gathering would be safe. Guess he’ll have to find a toadie governor such as GA or FL to bend to his will.