I’m not sure how to introduce this thing, so I guess I’ll just lay this out. The GOP has announced that they’re not releasing a platform this year, and basically just reusing the 2016 one with heaping sides of “Yay Trump” and “Boo Media”. I just don’t know how else to summarize this.

I’m going to go thru this whole document line by line, (It’s only one page, don’t panic), but first here’s a link to it straight from the GOP website. Just in case that gets moved later on, I’ll archive a copy of it here. If you’d rather not download a pdf, I’ll be copying the entire substance of the thing into this post so feel free to skip that part.

It’s titled “RESOLUTION REGARDING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM”, and presented in that “whereas, whereas, whereas” resolution format that I hate so much. I’m just going to copy it right in, the only modifications I’ve made is skipping the header and footer, and numbering the paragraphs.

1. WHEREAS, The Republican National Committee (RNC) has significantly scaled back the size and scope of the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte due to strict restrictions on gatherings and meetings, and out of concern for the safety of convention attendees and our hosts;
2. WHEREAS, The RNC has unanimously voted to forego the Convention Committee on Platform, in appreciation of the fact that it did not want a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement;
3. WHEREAS, All platforms are snapshots of the historical contexts in which they are born, and parties abide by their policy priorities, rather than their political rhetoric;
4. WHEREAS, The RNC, had the Platform Committee been able to convene in 2020, would have undoubtedly unanimously agreed to reassert the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration;
5. WHEREAS, The media has outrageously misrepresented the implications of the RNC not adopting a new platform in 2020 and continues to engage in misleading advocacy for the failed policies of the Obama-Biden Administration, rather than providing the public with unbiased reporting of facts; and
6. WHEREAS, The RNC enthusiastically supports President Trump and continues to reject the policy positions of the Obama-Biden Administration, as well as those espoused by the Democratic National Committee today; therefore, be it
7. RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda;
8. RESOVLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
9. RESOLVED, That the 2020 Republican National Convention calls on the media to engage in accurate and unbiased reporting, especially as it relates to the strong support of the RNC for President Trump and his Administration; and
10. RESOLVED, That any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.

This remarkable document has been bouncing around my brain for a couple of hours now. I keep trying to read the mind of the committee or person who wrote it. For example, I look at paragraph 4 and imagine someone saying, unconvincingly, “Oh yeah, it’s a real shame we couldn’t convene the Committee. It definitely would have been unanimous that we totally love and support Trump, pinky swear!”

The part that really amazes me, though, is considering paragraphs 3, 5, and 6 together. It’s like they’re pretending that nothing has changed in the last four years, they’re still hung up on Obama. Paragraph 3 straight up acknowledges that a platform is a time-sensitive thing, that’s why they usually get updated frequently. I guess they might be leaning heavily on the Biden part of “Obama-Biden”, trying to remind their base that Biden was VP to the dreaded Obama, but the idea of a president running for re-election against his predecessor really ought to be comical.

Speaking of paragraph 3, it kinda feels like “parties abide by their policy priorities, rather than their political rhetoric” is just quietly admitting that they weren’t really going to care about any of the things in the public platform anyway. I would have thought that a party platform would be a great place to define and explain a party’s priorities, but apparently it’s just empty political rhetoric.

There’s also whining about the media, and I feel like there has to be an early draft with the phrase “Jewish Media” in it. Given that the White House has complained about biased reporting when reporters literally just played clips of Trump speaking his own words, I doubt there’s anything that can satisfy their call in paragraph 9.

After three mugs of coffee I find myself finally starting to get properly sleepy, which is just awesome at a quarter to eight in the morning, so I guess I’ll wrap this up and figure out whether I want to take a nap or just power through the day.

Ultimately, this feels like a very “Trump” document to me. It’s weird, it’s stupid, it whines and brags in the same breath, and it uses a lot of words to say nothing of substance. I’d call it “short, but pointless”, except that there is a point, and that point is breaking our government. It’s running things not as an elected official, but a mob boss. “We don’t need a platform, we love the President” is not how representative government works.

If Biden has one term and Harris has two and Congress is cooperative those whole twelve years, that still probably won’t be long enough to undo the damage to our institutions and our political norms caused not just by Trump, but by the philosophy that put him in office and kept him there.