PS

Hulk Hogan's pro-Trump stump-speech earned him a series of interview invitations on Fox News, and probably other places:

Here is one clip from one of those interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPQcBZYGR8

He recollects: "It was fun. The energy in the room was CRAZY. It actually felt like a wrestling crowd..."

It seems he also gave a long interview to Sean Hannity.

PS

The immediate intro acts to the Trump speech that ended the RNC convention 2024:

(1.) Hulk Hogan (including a video montage before he took the stage "in character")

For the full "Hulk Hogan" appearance, go to the 2:57:00 mark here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEAZdrPxuzg ("Live: Republican National Convention Day 4," New York Post, Youtube), ending at about 3:07:30, a ten-minute performance.

(2.) Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham (Trump says his father was a big fan of Billy Graham)

(3.) Eric Trump, who has inherited the "Trump Organization" as CEO, and gave the usual sort of speech he gives;

(4.) Kid Rock, who performed a pro-Trump rap song;

(5.) Dana White, the head of The Ultimate Fighting Championship, who shouted threats at various people;

(6.) Lee Greenwood, now in his eighties, singing live his "Proud to be an American" song (you know it was live because his voice is not as strong as it once was, even against his 2016 appearances for Trump)

What do we make of this lineup?

---

On the "Proud to be an American" song: I made some observations about Lee Greenwood's hit and its music-video, which may be worth revisiting. Especially in light of how much of a pro-Trump stalwart Lee Greenwood has been since the 2015-16 campaign. And in light of the Trump-MAGA relevance of mid-2015 to at least late 2024, and maybe to early 2029...



https://www.unz.com/isteve/what-should-be-the-white-national-anthem-played-at-the-super-bowl/#comment-6376539

Trump's own first little forays into the political also came back then in the 1980s. The 'eighties,' the same time Lee Greenwood hit it big and gave us that old-fashioned, unironically patriotic "White National Anthem"; the same time Hulk Hogan began entertaining people with his choreographed wrestling and wrestling-ring character. (In some ways, viewed this way, the Trump campaigns are about nostalgia. Not that that's news to anyone who knows what MAGA stands for and understands the English word "again").

The subject of the Lee Greenwood song came up, a few months ago, because Steve Sailer (p.b.u.h.) asked:

"What should be the White National Anthem?"

There were about twelve nominees, including the Lee Greenwood song:

https://www.unz.com/isteve/what-should-be-the-white-national-anthem-played-at-the-super-bowl/#comment-6377931

PS: Idiocracy was supposed to be a warning, not a road map. ☮️

PS: Well, you got it, Mr. Hail. Good informed guess.

I cannot watch the video just now, but I did read people praising the Hulk Hogan speech. I know, I know, it IS Idiocracy to a degree. (I'd have to have watched more of the RNC to give a better opinion, so I'll take Mr. Hail's word on the general atmosphere there.)

However, this has me thinking of that post I was planning regarding Steve Sailer's talk of the right going low-brow. I suppose this convention shows it is in a way. Are the MAGA types also (as apart from the GOPe still running that show) low-brow? Is it really a bad thing compared to the high-brow Bai Dien Administrative State, the Huma Abedins, Victoria Nulands, Merrick Garlands.

Hey, sympathy ear bandages are one (silly) thing - good guess too, Adam, but tattoos of a whole color photographs? No on the tats.

It does all point to Peak Stupidity, or Idiocracy, happening in less than 1/10 the time it did in the movie story.

PS: Greetings again, Mr. Hail...

I was still sleepy eyed and kinda in a hurry when I misspelled Yturria in my first message this morning. (But my noon appointment was moved back to 3pm, so I have a little more time.)

Dorothy Yturria makes a cameo appearance in this magazine article from 1978...

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/expensive-people/

I really shouldn't pick on poor old Dorothy, but there is a good chance she was at that rally chanting USA! USA! USA! and cheering when The Hulk ripped off his shirt to the applause of the MAGA fans.

(Much like you have it on good authority that Mike Pence is a good neighbor, I have it on good authority that Dorothy Yturria is the sort of republican who was likely to be in attendance for the RNC festivities.)

So cheers to another (soon to be raining here) beautiful day! ☮️

PS: Good morning, Mr. Hail!

Allow me to (also) congratulate you on drawing the "pro-wrestling" analogy or metaphor for what the RNC Convention 2024 was like.

Pretty wild that we've come (some sort of?) full circle where Idiocracy meets real world modern American "politics" in 2024.

(WTF?)

Here's Hulk Hogan's full speech at the RNC...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig446isvXlI

(Just Kidding...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ico2_fk3dGc

Looks like The Hulk played all his greatest hits.
And the low IQ low info voaters in the room luv luv luved it!

(While we watched the Hulk Hogan RNC speech video Mrs. Smith wondered aloud if Dorothy Yuturia was in that room chanting USA! USA! USA!)

(a side note...)

A few days ago I said to Mrs. Smith that I wouldn't be surprised if some of the MAGA fans started wearing ear bandages in solidarity with Trump.

And then this happened...
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cldy39vpv4qo

And yesterday I said to the lovely 🥰 Mrs. Smith that pretty soon we would see people getting tattoos of that "iconic Trump photo" forever inked to their skin.

And then this happened...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-biggest-fans-ink-iconic-assassination-attempt-photo-on-their-bodies

RIP Satire. You had a good run.

Thanks for the RNC news, Mr. Hail...

𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐼 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦.

If I had any sort of attachment to the so called "government" I would likely have had a look of horror (similar to Mrs. Smith's) on my face while watching Terry Bollea's RNC speech. Somehow, I have lost so much faith in the goodness, seriousness, and intelligence of (most of) the people of America that I wouldn't expect anything less than the spectacle we witnessed at the RNC.

(Come on, Giant Meteor, where are you now when we so badly need you?)

Anyway...

I hope you have a great day, Mr. Hail! ☮️

PS

Allow me to congratulate myself in drawing the "pro-wrestling" analogy or metaphor for what the RNC Convention 2024 was like.

At that time of writing, there had been no actual pro-wrestling speakers. But on Day 4, there were two. I had no foreknowledge, but I had seen or heard in passing a substantial portion of Day 1, 2, and 3 of this spectacle.

PS

And....... they brought on Hulk Hogan.

By that I mean the pro-wrestling "character," not the man who played the character. The man was there, but he was in his pro-wrestling costume, the one recognizable since the 1980s.

Hulk Hogan, in full costume as you'd see him in the pro-wrestling ring, was seen mingling with MAGA bigshots, even in the elite "Trump Family, top lieutenants and Hindu wives ONLY" section.

Then Hulk Hogan gave his speech. This is an extreme example of how the aggregate 25 hours of programming in that stadium went, I mean if you watched any of the lesser acts, a lot of them were some less-animated versions of this kind of thing:

https://x.com/HiDadSoup/status/1814116715891970460

This is just embarrassing. I assume it appeals to some people. But not without cost to the collective dignity. And it's nothing against Hulk Hogan. But "come on, man."

PS

Brief update:

I mentioned in passing that the RNC Convention 2024 reminded me among other things of "pro wrestling." Amazingly, one of the speakers on Day 4: The former CEO of pro-wrestling mega-business WWE! Of course this person praised Trump as the greatest man etc etc.

PS: Good afternoon, Everyone...

https://i.ibb.co/cw4SgQz/RNC-2024.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/rQZ3xzw/You-re-Hired.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/4N0TZqk/Vespa-With-Airbags.jpg

Cheers! ☮️

PS: From that "Overton Briar Patch" post:

This is from my post:

If Peak Stupidity's term won't suffice, because it does kind of suck, there ought to be a term for a different phenomena that's been around in American politics of the major parties a long while. (I call them squads of the UniParty at this point.) Here's how it goes: The ctrl-left will act OUTRAGED at the (supposed) Conservatism, far-far-Rightism, and even Hitler-adjacent policies of the GOP high-office holders. This will be the case even when said GOP high-office holders are the most worthless, traitorous, compromising squishes and not Conservative in the least.

Some of the ctrl-left with what we may think of as having, or have thought of as having Trump/Bush/Bush/Reagan Derangement Syndrome may really be outraged, but these are the most deluded psychotic sickos. I believe most of them just act like they think said office holders (I include notable Senators and Congressmen too) are actually Conservative. Why come up with these huge exaggerations of the supposed Conservatism of these politicians? It's a tactic of theirs that works very well .

The effect of this tactic is to get Conservatives to actually believe "their" high-office holder is working hard, doing the right thing for them. "If they hate him so much, he MUST be doing a great job!" Well, that can be true, but not if that hate is based on exaggeration, lies, or plain insanity.

PS: Alarmist, there are also people, GOP or otherwise, in between stupid and evil. How about the greedy Big Ag or Construction businessmen who just don't care how the country is being changed because they are making a whole lot of money off of it.

That's stupid in a long-term sense: What about their children's and grandchildren's futures?

It's evil in that greed is an evil of sorts, I guess.

It seems somewhere in between.


I took a look at that tweet screenshot. Yeah, the tweeter, Luke, is right. I see nothing at all wrong with the fact that these people didn't who up. Hopefully it wasn't that they weren't invited, but more like they were specifically contacted and told to "Stay out of Milwaukee, Romnowski!" and the like!

That, BTW, goes along with my "Overton Briar Patch" theory:

https://www.peakstupidity.com/index.php?post=2445

MSNBC is trying to get Republican voters to think "Oh, my party and Trump are not doing well, if they can't get these famous elder Republicans to come and speak."

PS: On the wokeness at the convention. Maybe there are some good clips that drive home Mr. Hail's point, but it was probably an overriding feeling.

J1234, I hope that Trump's egotistical personality - not so bad if he didn't put his ego AHEAD of what's good for America - slightly ahead - has changed since he was shot at and very nearly killed. What you wrote about Trump worried about us dumping him if he doesn't come through on immigration is something that I don't agree with BEFORE this shooting. He'd just think we love him so much, and he'd still be around after 4 years to keep making the country great again, even not as President. I know he understands this issue, but like most people, he seems to think we have more time than we do.

However, now it might be different. Trump knows from reality, 5 days ago!, that at any point he could just cease to be around - it could be natural causes too, but that miraculous turn of the head hopefully has given him pause.

I couldn't agree more about the left's view of us MAGA people. I especially detest the entertainment "industry" and not necessarily Trump's part in it ("Your fired!" is all I remember), but his being enamored with the rappers, etc. However, that changes nothing for me, so long as Trump gets important things done. No, those 1st 4 years weren't nearly what they could have been, but his under-the-radar immigration control was not half bad. As much as his "since this has been recorded" bit about his border invasion charts is hype, his graphs from recent times are not wrong.

Hey, maybe the guy shot him because he doesn't like bullshitters. In a way, I would sympathize a bit... He did shoot him right after that. "You never saw such amazing things as I did since Moses was President!"

PS: To continue on my first point, I would be sure that this was nothing but a game or scam to the supposedly MAGA people you see, Mr. Hail, if, say, MTG or Matt Goetz was up on the stage saying this same stuff. Does Trump need to give some time for the old GOPe to do their thing. I can see where that grasping for the votes of people who White MAGA-style Americans would or should want nothing to do with would come in.

There are probably guys looking at spreadsheets "If we can get up to 20% of the Hispanics in Texas ... blah, blah, so push this MEGAH (MEGA, Hispanic style) stuff". "What, that's only 20%, yeah, but we're gonna make it up in volume, I tells ya'!"

As much as he shies away from any particular labels, Steve Sailer's advice was, and is still, very good. Get a LARGE share of the White votes. (Sure, Trump, where else have they got to go? ... maybe nowhere - they'll stay home on election day and say "screw this whole show" and make prepper plans or, unfortunately for some, check out with fentanyl.)

I've not been happy with Mr. Sailer's view of the Conservatives lately. Something tells me - I'd bet money - he'd not have anything good to say about Marjorie Taylor Greene, while for me it's quite the opposite.* I get that the look at the convention was low-brow and, just guessing here - too Idiocracy like. However, I think we need many more hard-charging, optic-be-damned, not-always-civil people like MTG and Gaetz rather than those old civil, well, Steve Sailer's. He thinks we'll get through all of this by making very good rational explanations to people... that hate our guts and will aim to kill us. (Like on Saturday.)


* Has he ever written anything about her?

PS: No, I sure haven't watched, so I appreciate the commentary here. Mr. Hail, you write as if the MAGA crowd is the same as the GOP itself. I realize Trump is the star of the show more than he ever was before, but is the whole thing presented as the MAGA agenda? I saw a clip - maybe one of 2 or 3 things from said convention - with the crowd booing Mitch McConnell. (McConnell wasn't making a speech even but just presenting the Kentucky vote tally.)

As J1234 wrote, these things are just shows. Trump is very good at taking part in big shows. I guess it's been too many years, maybe 28, maybe 32, since I've paid close attention to one of the conventions. I definitely remember the term "platform", with a dozen or score important policy points being laid out for the voters. (It's not like everyone there planned on keeping these promises, but still...) Is that not a thing anymore?

One thing I believe is important now is that Trump and any serious policy-makers on board with him may not to give any details of their plans at all. This assassination attempt shows that the ctlr-left is ready to "shoot down" (pun intended) said plans with lies, rhetoric, the courts, and whatever else. Say Steven Miller is in charge of some serious deportation plans (I would hope SOMEONE IS right now). I would not present those. The way things are now, you, and I mean Trump too, have got to be quick to implement policy in order to surprise the ctrl-left before the latter can work out ways to block it all.

So, one would hope that some of this stuff is under wraps, while in Milwaukee they go on about their Brown and Black MAGAs and their tranny MEGAs (I've only heard about the latter from discussion with a friend.)

PS

Speaking of a dumbed down convention, the dumbest Republicans are literally not there.

https://i0.wp.com/www.barnhardtmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/img_5974.jpg

PS

Well, the Republican Party is the Stupid Party to start with, so dumbed down is just dumbed down stupidity.

The Dems are the Silly Party cum Evil Party.

PS-
A good comment by Hail.

"My critique sounds a little like the Left's critique of MAGA and Trump"

Only for those who have a general disregard for context, and no time for nuance (which admittedly includes a lot of people today's political environment.) Context is lost on the leftist media, who walk around pretending like they're actually trying to understand things and people outside of their own experience. Most of them want to understand nothing. It's an act and everyone knows it. They're comfortable believing that most people who vote for Trump are his disciples, more or less in the vein of the Hitler Youth. And that we all love him because he's a celebrity and had his own TV show (even though a substantial portion of us despise the entertainment industry.)

I will vote for Trump even though I admire little about him outside of his tenacity and courage, but it's tenacity and courage that's most needed in standing up to today's self-appointed Brave-New-World shamans, so Trump wins the prize.

Having said that, I don't think I agree with the notion/insinuation that the RNC/MAGA/whatever shares something with the woke left, at least in any substantial way. These conventions have always been about hype and insincerity. They're hard for me to take seriously on an emotional level. I'm personally disappointed in Trump's selection of a running mate. I think Vance was an uninspiring choice.

Yes, Trump probably believes we adore him, but he probably also understands that if he doesn't come through, at least to some degree, on important issues like immigration during the next 4 years, most MAGA people will dump him. That's what's troubling about Vance...I see shades of Mitch McConnell in Vance.

PS

Day 3 of the RNC Convention, over. The final day is tomorrow.

If Peak Stupidity had people watching this tightly produced spectacle, there'd be material for the rest of the year.

There are all kinds of thoughts that come to mind. Mostly I am left with a bad impression. The whole thing reminds me, in some ways, of some hyped-up sports event, or pro-wrestling, or even an Twilight-Zone version of a pro-Wokeness DNC Convention just with everyone being R-teamers instead.

I conclude that MAGA is a political force, or coalition, that is managed by a group of morally unserious and cynical people. The whole thing is like some religious-revival group aimed low, which captures White voters and holds them captive (and "Based Brown Guy" allies who see dollar-signs from joining up). The whole thing, MAGA, whatever it is (I don't know WHAT it is --- for a political convention, I hear little of any actual policy proposals, just fluff-stories and 'rhetoric', i.e., demagogic attacks).

While Trump-MAGA is not something that is in the interests of White-Christians, it does rely on the blind support of those same people. So in principle a delicate balance is at stake, and Trump and co. think they can just cover the gap by bluster. When asked about White-voter defections, Trump is alleged to have recently said: "Where else are they gonna go?"

As usual, there is hubris at work here. Trump hubris. Trump doesn't understand that his success in politics is not because he is a magical or superhuman person, but because he spoke to Whites in the process of being dispossessed. They responded. That was the magic; it was not him---it was us.

Trump's narcissism eventually led him to think: "No, it's really because I'm just so great that they love me."

My critique sounds alittle like the Left's critique of MAGA and Trump (or the Left's criticism at its least histrionic): that the MAGA movement dupes its followers in the usual demagogic style, that there's little real behind their words. Judged by what the RNC Convention has showed, on balance, that critique is correct. I'd go so far as to say: MAGA might be the real Wokeness. I say this having voted for Trump twice, though I only actively supported him about three years in the late 2010s before growing tired of the kinds of things I've written here.

The RNC Convention 2024 really is, to borrow Steve Sailer's phrase, a "dumbed-down Republican Party."