Convention season is officially here. The Republicans kicked things off on Monday in Cleveland and it's going to be an a crazy few weeks, given that the Democratic convention starts next week in Philadelphia, directly on the heels of the GOP festivities. Luckily, you won't need to miss a second of all the chaos, because it's easier than ever to watch the Democratic and Republican conventions and get your fix of political theater.
As always, CSPAN is airing the conventions from start to finish so it's probably your best bet if you want uninterrupted coverage without any talking heads. They're also streaming it on the web so you can check in wherever you are.
The RNC is also streaming the convention on YouTube. If you like your convention coverage to come with some commentary (which is sort of half of the fun) all of the major cable news networks — CNN, Fox, and MSNBC are doing their thing from the convention halls. In addition to all of that, CBS News and Twitter teamed up in a pretty cool way to livestream the conventions on the social network. So every time Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, tweets about the festivities, you don't have to miss a thing. And everyone knows he'll be tweeting all week.
Both conventions are totally out of control, but the Republicans are the ones to watch for sure, for a few reasons. First off, some delegates have already started trying to get rid of Donald Trump. According to The New York Times, some delegates opposing Trump started to calling out "Roll call vote! Roll call vote!” to start a long, drawn out process in an attempt to delay the prime time programming and speakers later in the evening. It's not exactly a brokered convention, but it's a way to embarrass him at the beginning of the long week. It didn't work though and things got moving anyway.
Things are happening outside of the convention hall in Cleveland, too. Protestors have pretty much taken over the streets – luckily it's been pretty civil so far. Security is super tight, obviously, but Cleveland's open carry laws have made some people a little nervous about all of the political back and forth. The police union has asked the state to revoke the open carry law for the week, but that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon.
According to Al Jazeera, a third of Cleveland's police officers are assigned the convention area, and they've shipped in about 2,500 from the region to help keep people safe. Hopefully that should be enough to keep the peace.
Either way, it's going to be a long few weeks of convention madness. But if you want to keep your anxiety levels down, it's probably best to watch on Twitter. At least they have a sense of humor over there.
