1. Who the fukk thought it would be a good idea to have Marcus Luttrell suffering PTSD flashbacks on stage??
Rick Perry did a good job introducing him, they should have had him do that whole segment with Luttrell standing next to him. In fact, they should have brought up a group of famous veterans and had them just say a line about how fukked their life is because the country didn't take care of them, then let Perry do the speech about taking care of the vets. Have them stand behind him like when a group wins a Grammy or an Oscar. Cut that bullshyt comedic bit with those Benghazi Brothers too. shyt went on way too long and the one on the left was trash at speaking.
2. There is no way on earth Patricia Smith should have been allowed to do that speech. She should have been brought in for a quick testimonial, but she laid on the Hillary blame waaay too thick and it ended up looking manipulative and contrived
. She's seems unbalanced, and whoever was vetting the speakers should have flagged her because of it. Just like with Luttrell, there should have been a polished speaker on stage with her to guide her testimony.
3. Sheriff David Clark's speech was actually more subdued than I thought it would be based on his tiff with Don Lemon the previous night, but aren't there any other Sheriffs or famous law enforcement people who could bring a stronger message of reconciliation? Clark is good for diversity optics, and #BlueLivesMatter is fine seeing as a bunch of officers were just killed, but he went unnecessarily far with the caping for Freddie Gray's killers. They should have had a bunch of officers come up on stage to project strength and order. Do the usual crypto-fascist police reverence bullshyt, but the main message should be stopping the violence and returning order to the streets.
4. Guiliani actually had the most interesting speech of the night because of the previous point. He was trying to go the route of "the police are here for
ALL of us", which is the right message to strike here, but he delivered it in the ham-fisted style of a third rate fascist dictator.
5. Melania's cribbing of Michelle has to be sabotage. I can't believe something that dumb could have been approved
. It's now the main story coming out of the convention, which might not be a bad thing considering how much of a flop the rest of the night was, but it's definitely not the story the Trump campaign wanted coming into the convention.
6. Surprisingly Scott Baio and Antonio Sabato Jr had probably the best speeches of the night. The Duck Dynasty guy as well wasn't bad. Sabato went full retard in the post-speech presser though, so there goes that goodwill.
Overall, this was a real missed opportunity for Trump. He's a reality TV star. Political theatre and showmanship is supposed to be his forte. Make America Safe Again was an excellent message at this time in the country, and the incompetence of whoever ran that night fukked it. Honestly, he should have gotten Ryan Seacrest to host the night and just run it like an entertainment event. By letting loose cannons onstage with mic time, it ended up looking like an unpolished circus
. Also, how the fukk did they not fill up that arena?? You're telling me they can't bus in crowd fillers?? Those shots of the sparse crowd are perfect political imagery for the Dems. It's only Day 1, so maybe they'll clean up their act as they go along, but Make America Safe Again had huge potential and they kind of botched it.