The speeches delivered by elected Republican officials at this week’s GOP convention were hit-and-miss. South Carolina pols Tim Scott and Nikki Haley got off to a strong start on Monday night, making the case that America is a flawed but great country of which we should all be proud. But most other speeches by politicians, including the president, were lackluster.
Throughout the week, it was the non-pols who stole the show.
On night one, Floridians Maximo Alvarez and Andrew Pollack packed the greatest punch. Alvarez, whose family fled Castro’s Cuba, warned of the evils of socialism, and Pollack spoke bluntly about the naive policies that he believes allowed a gunman to kill 17 innocent people, including Pollack’s daughter Meadow, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
On night two, human-rights activist Abby Johnson gave a searing description of the evil of abortion.
On night three, human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng spoke of the evils of the Chinese Communist Party.
On night four, the stars were Ann Dorn, whose husband David was killed in the June riots; Alice Johnson, an advocate of criminal-justice reform whose life sentence was commuted by President Trump in 2018; and Carl and Marsha Mueller, who spoke of the horrors their daughter Kayla suffered at the hands of ISIS, as well as the heroism of the Americans who brought the men who killed their daughter to justice.
If you missed any of these speeches this week, each one is still worth watching now.