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At their convention last week, Democrats sought to frame the presidential election as a referendum on the character of the nominees — Joe Biden’s vs. President Trump’s. At the first day of their convention Monday, Republicans sought to frame the presidential election as a referendum on the character of the country — as a nation of individuals or a dystopian socialist collective. This is a column not about Republican hyperbole, but rather about the question underlying the pictures the GOP speakers painted of the country’s past, present and future. To wit, does government exist to empower individuals, or does it exist to manage shared responsibilities? (Jon Healey, 8/25)

Long before the conventions opened, it was clear that covid-19 would be the central narrative of this election. Cue Republican convention segments that strenuously implied that President Trump had taken the virus more seriously than Democrats . . . that he’d cut through bureaucratic red tape and PC nonsense to take bold action . . . that his resolve, plus a hefty dose of American greatness, have put the country in an enviable position, covid-wise. The moments were exceptionally well-produced, even stirring, if you didn’t know that Trump’s response to covid-19 has been well below average for the leader of a developed country. (Megan McArdle, 8/25)

The second night of the Republican National Convention showed a stark contrast between the GOP and the Democrats, Fox News host Laura Ingraham argued Tuesday. "Once again, we've seen a contrast between the party that believes in liberty, the GOP, and one that believes in lockdowns, the Democrats," she said off the top of "The Ingraham Angle". "For months we've heard Democrats and a few wimpy Republicans claim that because of this virus, we all have to get used to a new normal. "But I don't think they anticipated that there were tens of millions of Americans who like the old normal, thank you very much, and aren't about to lie down to let you take it away from us." (Sam Dorman, 8/26)

Trump, of course, is the star of the show, but he could overwhelm it if he were always on camera. Instead, other people sing his praises, including First Lady Melania Trump, who expressed sympathy for the death and suffering caused by the coronavirus and assured the nation that her husband would not rest until treatment and a vaccine were available to all. (Michael Goodwin, 8/26)

Scattered throughout the first night of the Republican National Convention were rave reviews of President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic: touting treatments, shutting down travel from China and rebounding the American economy. But all the spin on the president's handling of the virus is in sharp contrast with reality. (Justin Gomez and Will Steakin, 8/25)

Nicole Hemmer: Melania Trump opened her speech not only by acknowledging the pandemic, but also by sympathizing with the millions of Americans whose lives have been undone by it. Yes, I’m praising her for doing the bare minimum. But so far she’s the only headliner to do even that. Wajahat Ali :The United States is enduring a pandemic that has killed nearly 180,000 people. We are mired in a terrible recession. There are demonstrations against police brutality and racism. Climate change is burning California. People are in pain and suffering. There were no policies, no solutions, no platform. Nothing was offered except slogans and propaganda and Trump catnip. (8/25)

Imagine getting a prescription from a doctor and having to wonder whether the medication you are about to take has been rigorously tested in clinical trials — as is the gold standard set by the US Food and Drug Administration — or whether it has been green-lighted because a politician wanted to brag about it to win an election. That is the specter raised by President Trump’s recent efforts to undermine the FDA, the federal agency that is meant to serve as an apolitical arbiter of the safety and effectiveness of drugs, vaccines, and other medical products before they go to the market. (8/25)

Will we ever really know Melania Trump? In an impressive speech on Tuesday night, delivered from the White House Rose Garden she had recently renovated, the first lady, who has kept such a conspicuously low profile during the 3½ years of her husband’s presidency, said things that no one else had in the first two days of the Republican National Convention. She expressed sympathy for those who have suffered during the covid-19 pandemic. She pointedly declined to criticize her husband’s opponents, saying she did not want to deepen the nation’s divisions. (Karen Tumulty, 8/25)

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed many longstanding injustices, economic and social, that make life unduly perilous for Black Americans. There’s one that deserves more attention, and that is personal for me: How physicians treat patients very differently, depending on race. I’m a highly educated man living in one of the world’s richest nations, so you might assume that I enjoy better-than-average care. Yet it took me years of persistence and unnecessary suffering to get a digestive illness diagnosed. It turns out I’m not alone: Evidence suggests that doctors often don’t take seriously the complaints of Black patients. Such prejudice has deadly consequences, and stands in the way of efforts to address health disparities. (Trevon Logan, 8/25)

Joe Biden calls President Trump’s executive order deferring payroll tax payments through the end of the year a “reckless war on Social Security.” Nancy Pelosi says the President’s actions may lead to “shattering the sacred promise of Social Security.” Chuck Schumer warns that “President Trump’s plan to eliminate Social Security’s dedicated funding would endanger seniors’ Social Security and could mean the end of Social Security as we know it by 2023.” (8/25)

Last week saw an illuminating postscript to one of the most shameful moments in U.S. government history. It was newly revealed that the Trump administration’s decision to separate thousands of migrant children from their parents at the southern border wasn’t the unintended bureaucratic snafu that the White House has claimed but rather a deliberate outcome approved with a show-of-hands vote in a 2018 Situation Room meeting. Emotionally torturing children and parents as intentional migration deterrence qualifies as pathologically cruel. Under President Donald Trump, it was policy. He has given voters numerous competing outrages to process going into November, but Americans must not allow this one to fall off their election radar screen. (8/25)