Democrats Have Another Cringeworthy Convention Moment That Set Tongues Wagging

AP featured image — In this image from video, Tracee Ellis Ross, serving as moderator, speaks during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)

The DNC virtual convention continued last night, still looking like a badly-put-on telethon.

But they had more cringeworthy moments last night and it wasn’t just the Bill Clinton speech after pictures dropped of him being massaged by an Epstein victim.

The DNC did a roll call of the states and territories officially nominating Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate. The idea wasn’t a bad one — that you could hear from and get a look at some of the states’ visuals in the process.

But Democrats really weren’t thinking about the optics or propriety when they had the roll call vote from American Samoa.

Here's video pic.twitter.com/1MAxL3S4n4

— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) August 19, 2020

That immediately set tongues wagging not because of the beautiful visuals, but because of the presence of the two Army soldiers in full uniform. While you could not see their faces because they were covered by masks, you could see their name tags on their uniforms.

This raised immediate questions given the restrictions on the military.

According to the Department of Defense:

Members on active duty may not participate in partisan activities such as soliciting or engaging in partisan fundraiser activities, serving as the sponsor of a partisan club, or speaking before a partisan gathering. In addition, all military members, including National Guard and Reserve forces, are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign events.

They’re also participating in a political convention.

Pretty hard to argue participating in a roll call nomination of a political candidate isn’t a problem.

"All members of the Armed Forces, including active duty members, members of the reserve component not on active duty, and retired members, are prohibited from wearing military uniforms at political campaign or election events," the Pentagon press office's initial response. 👇👇 https://t.co/CaYXgC4qMn

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 19, 2020

Translation: these folks are going to catch it for doing this.

ABC also reached out to the DNC and Biden officials for comment as to why they did this but haven’t gotten an answer back yet.

The DNC platform states that “Democrats will never use active duty soldiers as political props, and we will never send military forces to suppress Americans exercising their constitutional rights.” But obviously they are using them as endorsing props here. Democrats’ ignorance about the military didn’t serve them well here.

American Samoa doesn’t have active duty military stationed there but they do have a small reserve unit.

But while Americans raised questions about Democrats misusing the military to make it look like they were endorsing Joe Biden, leftist Democrats were mad about something else about the tableau.

According to them, it looked “imperialistic” to have the soldiers standing behind the Samoan delegates. So they’re mad the Democrats weren’t paying attention sufficiently to those optics.

Yeah this is the perfect picture to describe US Imperialism: a hostage situation for the people of American Samoa https://t.co/DRMeuFrPyZ

— Black Belt in Procrastination🇰🇪 (@Jkiboi7) August 19, 2020