The RNC we are watching this week is amazing to watch. Agree or disagree, all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place and the thing is progressing smooth as silk. The crowd is engaged and enthusiastic; the energy is immense. Donald Trump appears the revered statesman and is exercising the discipline necessary not to counteract the vision. Meanwhile, the Democrats are falling apart before our eyes. Yesterday the three leading Democratic office holders other than the president told Biden he was harming the party. And can you blame them when he gets angry at a genuine American hero? It is a rare moment in history when we can see one party function so well while the other breaks down in complete dysfunction.

This is a tough moment to analyze because there are so many factors at play. But that said I think I want to concentrate on style. Particularly we are at a point in history where style has become quite consequential. Democrats, at least in recent times, operate by a sort of passive-aggression. That’s a psychological term-of-art, often misunderstood and abused. But the Mayo Clinic supplies a short list of “signs of passive-aggressive behavior”

• Resentment and opposition to the demands of others, especially the demands of people in positions of authority

• Resistance to cooperation, procrastination and intentional mistakes in response to others’ demands

• Cynical, sullen or hostile attitude

• Frequent complaints about feeling underappreciated or cheated

Does that not sound at least vaguely familiar? I thought about this as I have watched Joe Biden and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Biden’s irritability is increasing on an almost daily basis (sullen, hostile) and Cheatle’s unwillingness to resign in the face of very obvious failures (resentment and opposition to the demands of others, resistance to cooperation) seem almost textbook passive-aggressive behaviors.

Donald Trump on the other hand is an almost textbook example of aggressive-aggression – staring issues directly in the face and attacking them head on, often with a bluntness that is off-putting. Think of the old aphorism about a “bull in a china shop.”

Yesterday I wrote of our slide from excellence, through distraction, into incompetency. The whole thing about “procrastination and intentional mistakes in response to others’ demands” defines the policies of the Democrats for the last couple of decades and explains how we got here. They have failed to take care of the basics of operating a state, choosing to focus on their sense of victimhood. That’s how California can spend uncountable sums of money and yet the roads are in awful shape, crime runs rampant and the streets full of tents and human feces. That’s how the Secret Service can fail so miserably.

I find it fascinating how Democrats dysfunction has made Trump so palatable. By all accounts, which I assume will be proven out tonight, DJT is a chastened man, humbled by the events of last Saturday. He has shown signs of such humility before – the example that comes to my mind is his acceptance speech when he won the election in 2016. But he is still DJT. There is little doubt in my mind that as time goes forward, we will see the bombast that has made him so difficult for so many to stomach. But after four years of Biden’s dysfunctional gentility, America is ready for some bombastic function.

Passive-aggression is “nice.” But it does not function. Aggressive-aggression is not necessarily nice, but it is certainly functional. We are in desperate need of functionality right now and America knows it.

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