Politics is a visual experience. The images created during the late great American primary season are examples. First, we had the Trump clan, straight out of Lake Wobegon where “all the men are strong, the women good looking, and the children well above average.” Indeed, all the Trump kids are pink, fit, well groomed, educated, and successful.  No drunks, no junkies, no chubby chasers, and no children in rehab. Not a deadbeat in the bunch.

The Cleveland aura was captured in a Mike Pence aphorism; “You can’t fake good kids.”

It may have taken three marriages, but family Trump is now both a brand and a political phenomenon. His outsider mantra is a paean to Cobb salad, exercise, independence, probity, upward mobility, and entrepreneurship.

When Trump doesn’t have his foot in his mouth, his message is salutary. Success, sobriety, and size six mates are possible. You can be me, says he.  Early sloganeering was illuminating. Hillary feminazis chanted, “I’m with her” while Trump parried with “I’m with you.”

From the start, the Democrat quadrennial looked like a cross between a victim’s rodeo and a weight watchers jamboree. The festivities opened with a zaftig rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Republic with the refrain “his truth goes marching on.” You would think that “truth” would be the last subject to bring up at any Clinton rally.  Compounding irony, media dolts failed to note that Dixie was the more appropriate Democrat theme song. The Battle Hymn is the anthem of Lincoln and Republicans, the folks who actually opposed slavery, then and now.

Alas, cultural appropriations and Wikileaks are the weft and warp that bind Democrats in 2016. Early on, Julian Assange unhorsed Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC chair, with a purloined email broadside that confirmed what Sanders and Trump had been saying all along. When merit fails, the Clintons will cheat or steal.

Between DNC bias and super delegates, a Hillary coronation was assured.  Ironically, the DNC primary fixers validated Trump’s “crooked” Hillary charge. The Democratic Party trusts voters and free elections in the same sense that the Mafia trusts snitches and competition. 

Other images from Philadelphia included persistent anti-war chants, Palestinian flag waving, Israeli flag burnings, and at least one instance of a moron setting himself on fire while trying to light an American flag. The boo birds were out in force too. Shills as diverse as Sarah Silverman and General John Allen were hooted off the DNC stage.

Islamists and cop killers were not mentioned by the Democrats with one ugly exception. The DNC managed to find one pair of Muslim American gold star parents to trot out and exploit as if Hillary cared about war casualties at home or abroad. In four short days, team Obama went from the “what difference, at this point, does it make?” in Benghazi to “we care” in Philadelphia. They care if Dad’s name is Khizr Khan. Clintonistas care most when there’s an election -- or the dog tag on the dead soldier reads Muslim.

Speaking of headstone politics, how many Islamic crescents are featured at Arlington National Cemetery compared to crosses or Mogen Davids? And while we’re at it, shouldn’t the DNC keep track of Christian and Jewish soldiers killed and injured by Muslim Americans in uniform? Major Nidal Hassan, US Army, alone has 43 American entries on his jihad scorecard. 

Largely mute about the local and global march of Islamism and terror, the DNC is not above exploiting a solitary body bag. Silence on the Left is the most hideous form of collaboration.  

Still, little of the operatic drama and pageantry that is a political convention means anything until the fat lady sings. Right on cue, Mrs. Clinton strode to center stage in the Philly finale wearing a white three piece pants suit.  A study in ambiguity, it was hard to know whether the DNC was channeling a “shmoo,” a gay wedding, or a remake of One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest. Short of a nurse’s cap, Mrs. Clinton looked to be the specter of Nurse Ratched reborn.

Imagery is often more than imagination. The branding in Philadelphia might be a kind of prophecy too. The perverse political nurse imagery was accompanied by an offstage citizen chorus chanting “lock her up.” Wikileaks, not the FBI, may now be the master of Hillary’s political fate.

All elections, withal, are largely about brand loyalty. Obama, Clinton, and Left loyalists capture just about all the victims and dependents; anyone who works for government, sells something to government, or relies on government for a paycheck or a handout. Unfortunately, the “taker” class is growing faster than the “maker” class.

G. Murphy Donovan writes about the politics of national security.