Some laugh, some boo at GOP convention watch party in North Las Vegas
Some laughed and snickered.
Some booed and screamed.
Others, like 35-year-old Joe Sacco, simply buried their faces in their hands in disbelief as they watched Donald Trump “humbly and gratefully” accept the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland during the final night of the Republican National Convention.
Sacco and about 60 others watched Trump’s acceptance speech from a progressive activist watch party in North Las Vegas Thursday night.
Artie Blanco, the 42-year-old state director for the super PAC For Our Future, said Trump’s 76-minute acceptance speech contained “no substance.”
“It’s a speech of one-liners and a speech that’s all over the place,” Blanco said as Trump neared the end of his speech. “There’s really just nothing there.”
Blanco called the speech hypocritical, especially when Trump talked about forcing companies to manufacture products on U.S. soil when his own companies sell products manufactured in countries such as Mexico and China.
Before Trump ever made an appearance on television Thursday night, the watch partygoers got themselves pumped up with chants of “When Trump says ‘Go,’ we say ‘No!’”
One of the attendees, Nick Marquet, said he had been a Republican for most of his adult life.
Marquet, 35, said he couldn’t stomach to watch his party become increasingly negative toward the LGBTQ community, to which several of his friends belong.
Marquet said he had to ask himself how he could look at his friends and say “your love for your partner doesn’t mean the same as mine does.”
“The party no longer represented what I believe in,” Marquet said as he watched the convention at the watch party.
Marquet saw Trump accept the Republican presidential nomination, a move which he called terrifying.
The aggression and vitriolic speech that Marquet said has come from his former party this election cycle is reminiscent of the rhetoric used by the likes of Joseph McCarthy during the Communism scare of the 1950s, he said.
“I don’t ever remember it being this way,” he added.
Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
