(Screenshot via Twitter)
The first night of the Republican National Convention really brought it with Kimberly Guilfoyle hopped up on that Jason Statham Crank while her boyfriend spent his speech crying over the fact that his dad will never love him. Guilfoyle also pegged herself as a first-generation American despite being Puerto Rican which is, you know, AMERICA. They even threw in Herschel Walker, a former professional athlete whose primary career accomplishment was being traded for the roughly 8,000 draft picks that made the Dallas Cowboys insufferable again.
But the highlight was a living room address from Mark and Patty McCloskey.
A true masterpiece of the hostage video genre. This looks so much like they’re begging for ransom I found myself cross-checking their blinks with Morse Code.
Honestly, it’s getting harder and harder not to feel bad for these people. At a certain point, you can only watch Sideshow Bob step on rakes for so long before his own incompetence gets sad. These folks already jumped head first into cartoonish infamy and if people cared about them they’d advise them to lay low until the news cycle moves on. But instead, they’ve decided to try and recast themselves as normal people sitting on their couch and only managed to land themselves in another future comedy skit that will enter the canon of 2020’s greatest hits.
The show gets off the rails within seconds.
We’re speaking to you tonight from St. Louis, Missouri, where just weeks ago, you may have seen us defending our home….
Yeah, it’s not really “defending” when there’s not a threat. People marched down the street. It’s not really a threat unless you enter the discussion from the standpoint that large groups of mostly black people are by definition “a threat.” Spoiler alert, that’s the sentiment of this speech, which will take a wild turn in the middle to complain about housing discrimination laws.
When I first learned that the McCloskeys would speak at the convention, I figured they’d give some sort of bland Second Amendment rah rah speech. But instead they were tagged with pushing all the obscure racist dog whistle policy tweaks. First, the fair housing rule and then Mark garbles something about defunding the police and takes a swing at “ending cash bail so criminals can be released back out on the streets the same day to riot again.” What is it with these people and cash bail reform? It’s such a weird high horse for anyone to get on because cash bail by definition lets defendants — because they aren’t criminals at this point — back on the street. All eliminating bail does is say that we won’t punish poor defendants in ways that we would never punish rich defendants based on setting an artificial price on “risk of flight.”
The campaign seems to think the key to the suburbs is casting the McCloskeys in their restored turn-of-the-century palazzo as typical suburbanites. Imagine believing that suburbanites are more worried about fair housing regulations than what will happen when they send their kids to school next week.
The money line:
Not a single person in the out-of-control mob you saw at our house was charged with a crime. But you know who was?
No, who?
We were.
I’m just spitballing here, but maybe that’s because you were the only people committing crimes.
And, yes, it is a gated community which means the protesters were trespassing, though video of the march entering the area shows them walking through an open and unbroken gate which mitigates the argument that folks knew they were casually trespassing. And even if they were, aiming deadly weapons at people is going to trump trespassing every time. The video includes pictures of the event showing the protesters very intentionally NOT stepping onto McCloskey property. Unless they’ve adversely possessed the sidewalk (and, there are some places where sidewalks are designated as part of the property, but the point remains that these folks are pretty clearly holding at what the reasonable person would assume is the property line).
(Screenshot from RNC video)
All this “defending” and “out-of-control” talk would resonate better if they didn’t provide the contradictory photo evidence themselves.
Consider this, the Marxist liberal activist….
This is where McCloskey is going to complain about Cori Bush being on her way to Congress right now. Although he’s not going to give her the respect of calling her by her name, he’s just going to use the word “Marxist” a bunch.
Oooooh. Historical materialism! Hide the kids!
These radicals aren’t content with marching the streets, they want to walk the halls of Congress.
Isn’t that good? Like, wouldn’t that be better than guillotines?
“Trump brought us the greatest economy our country had ever seen.”
Putting aside that this isn’t true, that “had” looms rather large don’t you think? Frankly, it’s shocking that Mark managed to get the past tense in there past the RNC messaging gurus.
Hopefully that doesn’t spoil their ransom efforts.
Earlier: St. Louis Lawyers Wave AR-15 At Protesters Like Totally Normal, Totally Not Bonkers People
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.