Day Two at the RNC: The Air-Conditioned Nightmare That Makes You Shake

Let’s Republican Party!!

I hadn’t considered when I accepted this dare, to venture here into the belly of the Kraken and report back from its sizzling entrails, how difficult it might end up being for me to write about it. I’m a poet. I can sit through hours of anything. Conceptual poetry, Flarf poetry, Mansplainers, People with those annoying “poetry voices.” For me, many of these speeches you may or may not be enjoying are just a kind of verbal jiujitsu. I can like the dance but not like the song. With that understanding, hi, you may now fall down the chimney and into the embers with me together.

This opportunity to come here and witness speeches, parliamentary procedures, occasional ritual chanting interspersed with shuffling out to see a cloud of media and protestors alternately join hands briefly and then toss each other aside gently has been extraordinary. People are nice: delegates, security, media, staff inside the venue, locals, dudes in Hillary masks. Bomb-sniffing dogs are nice. You’re not supposed to pet them, but they are still very friendly. We hang out inside the large cool box together, waiting for something to happen.

Clearly everyone here wants something to happen. Not necessarily something, more like anything or the next thing. I seem to always be missing something interesting. If I am in Quicken Loans Arena then Westboro Baptist people are scuffling with Black Lives Matter people at Public Square down Prospect Place and over a block on Ontario. I go up and down East 4th St, with its thick crowd like molasses pouring down bricks, someone is doing something crazy bananas in the Q. Open-carry dudes see me coming and vanish. Bikers for Trump are always revving off, always just turning the corner.

If you desire to be on television, you just have to come to the small opening of the black perimeter fence at the corner of East 4th and Prospect Ave. It is open mic day and night, and every mic is open. You have a Hillary mask? Get it, put on a blue infidel shirt on and shake your booty for whoever is carrying cameras and phones around just outside the Arena. Someone will definitely put you somewhere. But it’s hot in that mask, I bet. (He had a big yellow “Trump v. Tramp” sign.) The Code Pink women had something written something across their cleavage, and they were stripping down to bras to draw attention. I felt guilty trying to read their message.

Possibly I was the only one who didn’t know we wouldn’t be gaveled into session until almost 5:30pm. The RNC app I have downloaded has a PDF file of the schedule, but I have to scroll down with my fat useless fingers, in this weird way, past pages and pages of Monday to see what will be happening. Beats me if Former Quarterback Tim Tebow is coming. People keep asking me, but I can’t figure it out. I should have packed smarter, I have lots of shorts but only my Tim Tebow jersey to keep me warm in the air-conditioning.

From above the convention floor it’s all cowboy hats and chants: “USA, USA!” “Lock her up!” “We Want Trump!” How does one reconcile how something plays on the Convention Hall against how it plays on TV? Mrs. Trump hit a home run with the crowd on Monday night! Upon further review, it was maybe a double. Many restless delegates booed Speaker Ryan and loudly booed Majority Leader McConnell. Chris Christie gave the most energetic presentation. Ben Carson was greeted warmly, but his message seemed to float off. The people on the convention floor seem indifferent to most other serious elected officials, senators, governors, whoever. If you’re not a celebrity, even a D-list celebrity, there is little electricity in the hall. If they don’t like Republican politicians, what chance does Hillary Clinton have? Not much. They chanted “Lock her up!” with a chilling zeal. It’s this convention’s “Drill, Baby, Drill.” But nothing can truly replace the oil-thirsty joy of that chant.

Possibly the pep rally lacks pep. Thoughtful speeches fall flat. The crowd desperately wants to stand and cheer and when they get the chance they do. But it’s tough to figure out if it’s all that Pro-Trump.

The convention floor is often sparsely populated. Often the murmur of delegates conversing with each other, backs turned to the podium, buzzes life than the speaker. The food and concession stands are always packed. Inside they sell official GOP t-shirts and those familiar “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps. Outside “Hillary for Prison 2016” shirts are sold out everywhere. And I’m watching the things that people are watching on TV. They don’t depress me; I can hear the poetry. In some cases, the poetry falls flat. But I want to be able to see it the way they might see it on the convention floor, looking up at me in the rafters.

I tried to interview a Michigan alternate delegate. She asked me who I voted for. I told her Hillary Clinton, but that I just wanted her to explain some things for me. She explained that alternates vote if some emergency happens to a regular delegate. I asked her about the Roll Call Vote hubbub of the day before, about what she thought of this convention as opposed to other conventions she’s attended. She politely answered my questions through clenched teeth. I clearly disgusted her. It’s not entirely clear, even to me, what is written across my own chest.

Jim Behrle lives in Jersey City and works in a bookstore. He is reporting and Periscoping for WFMU at the GOP Convention in Cleveland this week.