So….yes, this whole Melania-stole-from-Michelle’s-DNC-speech
thing has been wildly entertaining because the memes that have resulted are
side-splittingly comedic. There’s no denying that. But in all seriousness – I don’t
think the infraction is quite as insulting as Trump’s detractors have made it
out to be. To be clear – Trump and anyone willingly in a relationship with him
(romantic or professional) is a mouth-breathing, sycophantic gold digger;
deserving no respect. But let’s face facts: 99% of politicians and key note speakers
at giant public events like conventions are guilty of plagiarism at some point.
There’s only so many ways you can rearrange the order of words for a common
idea that is often being conveyed at these things. The big reveal here isn’t
that Melania Trump is an unoriginal speech thief. Anyone who has seen Melania
Trump and heard her speak in everyday life will realize that she is a vapid,
opportunistic Barbie doll who married Trump for his money and cashed in big
time on her physical appeal. She’s a blank slate, (an ambitious one, sure) but there’s
nothing much going on up stairs.
The true reveal of this debacle is that Trump can’t even
hire speech writers competent enough to know that 22 out of 26 words in a part
of that speech are IDENTICAL to the Michelle Obama speech. I don’t believe for
a second that Melania had any credible role in writing the speech she gave –
she likely met with the team, who impressed upon her ideas that would be
helpful in humanizing her orange demon of a spouse, and then she memorized and
parroted them during her part of the show. I don’t know who ghost wrote the
speech but – really guys? Really? Let’s be SUUUUUPER generous and hypothesize
that they didn’t intentionally lift that part of the speech from Mrs. Obama.
There is technology that is used by any credible speech writer which compares
what they have written to blocks of words widely available on the internet. It
is also used by educators – regular public school English teachers up to
Princeton tenured professors. This technology exists because in the internet
age – you honestly have to be concerned that someone will steal your shit, or call you out on your
shit when you plagiarize. So clearly, they failed at their job – which was to
write a speech for Trump Wife #3 that was original enough to pass internet muster
while simultaneously humanizing her husband.
So, if they wanted to successfully save face, the Trump camp
should have thrown these idiots under the bus. “The speech writing staff was to
blame, because we hate Obama and we’ve
never seen Michelle Obama speak before so there’s no way we could have known!” should have been their (stupidass)
response. But what was their response? Everything ranging from “this was entirely
original; it was an expression of alike ideas” to “IT’S ALL THAT BITCH HILLARY’S
FAULT!!!” Keeping things 100: you all know I don’t have any love for Hillary,
but trying to blame her for the laser like focus the media gave to this gaffe
is like blaming Vladimir Putin for the backlash: they’re both completely, undeniably uninvolved and not responsible
for the way this story took off, despite both being evil geniuses.
The entire RNC has been nothing but a bash-Clinton party so
far– which ultimately shows us that yet again, the Republican Party has ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING TO OFFER IN TERMS OF IDEAS AND SOLUTIONS to the problems that plague our nation. It’s all smoke and
mirrors! Who opened up Monday night? John McCain? Nope. George Bush (either of
them)? No. Karl Rove? Nay. Dick Cheney? Afraid not. SARAH PALIN? Noooooo. Well,
who then? THREE TELEVISION ACTORS AND RICK PERRY. That’s who spoke (aside from
Melania) opening night. Scott “Chachi” Baio, Antonio Sabato Jr (I CANT EVEN
NAME A SINGLE FUCKING THING HE HAS ACTED IN), that guy from Duck Dynasty (the
main one, not his deplorable father), and Rick “if you can’t beat em, join em” Perry
– former Governor of Texas, a state never once known for the sanity or level
headedness of its citizenry. Let that sink in. Reality television stars are the
key note speakers of the Republican convention. The strategy is terrifyingly
simple, then, albeit dastardly brilliant: the sheeple of America worship “unscripted”
television featuring falsely wholesome protagonists: they don’t know and they
don’t care to know how anything actually works in their country, they just know
that their lives suck and that there are more brown and black and gay people than
ever in America, so they must be at least partially to blame for destroying the
American dream, right??? Who better than to drive that racist bigoted garbage
home than the stars of TLC and VH1 Reality shows? Fly over America feels like
they know Chachi – even though Happy
Days aired like 40 years ago – so he must know their plight!
Trump’s campaign is a modified Southern strategy, but
instead of playing just on racial resentment among Southern voters (he’s definitely
got that angle covered on a national scale), he’s also capturing the
non-critical thinking couch potato demographic by parading a cavalcade of
D-list celebrities to propagate his campaign to the masses.
To be fair, the Democratic Party definitely benefits from
the endorsements of many Hollywood actors and media personalities. How much did
George Clooney spend on the Clinton fundraiser this year!? We all remember back
in 2005 when Kanye said that George Bush doesn’t care about black people at
that Hurricane Katrina relief event. And anything and everything Seth
MacFarlane does is blatantly anti-conservative. The bottom line being – the Republicans
have finally caught on and are using the morally bankrupt nature of fame whores
to their advantage, to great effect. Not to be discounted, however, is the fact
that traditional Republican heavyweights want nothing to do with Trump – so even
if it weren’t to their advantage to use reality television personalities in
their campaign, they don’t have Karl Rove or John McCain or George W. to fall
back on – so they’d have to use alternatives anyway.
Ultimately, the facts are: Trump is a buffoon; a charlatan
born with a silver spoon in his mouth who realized that one’s brand is fiscally
worth more than having substance or integrity, and took that idea to the bank
(and then filed for bankruptcy 4 times when his bluster and legal team budgets
weren’t enough to keep his businesses afloat). He doesn’t give a crap about
everyday Americans – this is all a wild ego trip for him. This speech gaffe –
among countless other red flags – is just further proof that he has ZERO crises
management skills, ZERO experience governing a body of heterogeneous people,
and ZERO believability as a competent leader.
I’ll continue to giggle at clever internet memes berating
the RNC and it’s pathetic pandering to small minded people, but behind every
laugh I will cringe in fear because the sheer amount of sheeple in this country
is enough where we do need to worry
about the possibility of a President Trump – because lies and douchebaggery no
longer disqualify you from public office.
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