And I have just the place for it. Over the weekend there were many reports (some even made national news) of thousands of revelers at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri (many of them from Kansas City and St. Louis) enjoying the sun, the scenery, and the absence of personal responsibility. The local government’s response was that wearing masks and staying six feet apart, “is a guideline, not a law.”
I’m sure the good people in central Missouri would welcome thousands of people eager to assemble, do a little business, and play golf, water ski, and drink heavily while they’re there. And the people in Kansas City and St. Louis would appreciate that all those people will get the hell out of Missouri and go back to their homes instead of hanging around here.
Rather than issue demands for unobtainable guarantees, the RNC was instead engaged in quiet talks with NC’s government to figure out how they could proceed with the convention in a manner that respected the safety both of conventiongoers and of locals.
Then Trump cannonballed into the negotiations and fucked it all up. There’s a decent chance he’s gonna force the RNC to scramble to relocate their convention in another state, AND will force it to hold the convention in the least safe manner possible, endangering the lives of the old bigots at the head of the party.
If it weren’t for the danger it’s gonna pose to the low-wage workers at the convention, I wouldn’t shed a tear, but goddamn.
I know the Republicans bend over and let Individual 1 ram it in whenever he wants, but doesn’t moving the convention require a vote of the Republican National Committee?
If you take the politics out of it, then there’s no reason for the thing to happen in the first place. With COVID-19 concerns, there’s no reason to have such a gathering. Literally nothing will be decided there.
The only reason this even needs to exist is as a political rally for Donald Trump.
And, yes, there is nothing reasonable about declaring this all publicly, rather than negotiating behind the scenes.
So, yes, you will be criticized, because you’re deliberately cherrypicking to make the whole thing seem reasonable.
That seems likely–but there’s also a good chance that the RNC talks him down. Arranging a multi-day, high security event for 50,000 people is, under the best of circumstances, a logistical tour de force that takes many months to pull off. Doing so mid-pandemic has got to be way harder. If they have to move it with less than three months to plan–well, I just think there may be people in the RNC who are less than pleased about that.
They hitched their wagon to a horse that was running towards a cliff. Sucks to be them. Especially since they were the ones yelling “Faster, faster!!!”
Because he needs to make it look like he imposed his will one way or the other, and he did not want terms and conditions negotiated that he and his Trumpaloompahs would have to follow. If it stays in NC, he wants to say *“This very terrible Governor, he did not want this to happen, until I came out and said we’ll go elsewhere if you don’t let us do it the way we want it, and he had to back down,” *even if nobody backs down and sensible arrangements were made but he just goes against all agreements because “hey, who’s gonna make me?”.
If that really happens, then good riddance; I’d expect the entire thing to be an epic clusterfuck in keeping with this entire adminstration. But then again, who is to say that it won’t be exactly that if they don’t move it? And **BigT **makes a good point - nothing is going to be decided there, so the only reason to have it is to glorify the Dear Leader. If anyone gets sick and dies as a result of attending … that’s not going to be a good look …
Glorifying Dear Leader may be the only reason, but it’s THE most important reason! How long has it been since trump has been cheered and screamed at (with millions of aerosolized spit droplets) by the teaming, adoring hordes? Doing without a rally is a greater hardship than doing without golf! :eek:
Maybe they can just fill all the convention attendees’ seats with Korean sex dolls, holding the appropriate state banners. And play recorded shouting and applause.
Likewise Burning Man was cancelled in early April. In the statement the Org stated it would be a Bad Idea to bring 50,000 people in from all over to the world to a desert location where all of the water has to be hauled in so the extra sanitation steps would be tricky, let them mix freely, then have them disperse back to their homes.
In the statement, it said that maybe – just maybe – the pandemic will have blown over by late August but they couldn’t be sure, and there are too many moving parts to rev up in July or August to make it happen properly. So rather than keep thousands of people in suspense, they would pull the plug now (early April).
This was a big blow for a $40-million a year enterprise, 97% of the revenues coming from ticket sales but they bit the bullet and did it.
He would probably prefer a domed stadium rather than a BB arena. Atlanta and St. Pete fit that bill. If he settles for an arena he has Sunrise FL, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Atlanta to pick from.
I found out something today I did not know - that Charlotte was the only city to bid for the RNC 2020 convention (the Nevada Republican party put in a bid to have it in Las Vegas, but without the support of the city or the visitors’ bureau). Gee, I wonder why??
Somehow I don’t think there will be any support at all from officials in Atlanta for moving it there …
