As Donald Trump recounted the terrifying moment when a would-be assassin attempted to kill him on Saturday, the adoring audience at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee hung on his every word. Trump then accepted the Republican presidential nomination for the third time with a momentary message of unity, calling on the country to come together in the wake of the violent attack.
“As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny,” Trump said on Thursday night. “We rise together or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America.”
If Republicans can maintain that image through the next four months, they might see an overwhelming victory in November. Trump will head to Michigan on Saturday for his first campaign rally with his new running mate, and he is expected to now zero in on the so-called “blue wall” states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – to snuff out Biden’s most likely path to victory. But if the past week has taught Americans anything, it’s that much can change in just a short time.
Minutes after Trump recounted his harrowing tale in the speech, the former president, as he so often does, stepped on his own message. Often veering away from his prepared remarks displayed on a teleprompter, Trump peppered his speech with interjections about the former Democratic House speaker (“crazy Nancy Pelosi”) or a hated news program (“De-Face the Nation”). While promising to “make America great once again”, he painted a picture of an American hellscape under Joe Biden’s leadership, torn apart by “a devastating inflation crisis” and “a massive invasion on our southern border”.
The speech reflected a pattern that played out again and again over the course of the week in Milwaukee, as Republicans tried to project a message of unity with decidedly mixed success. Trump’s newly minted running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, preached a message of economic opportunity for all as convention attendees waved signs reading: “Mass deportation now!” Nikki Haley emphasized the need for Republicans to build a big-tent party based on decency just before Ron DeSantis stepped up to sneer at Biden’s “Weekend at Bernie’s” presidency.
Some speeches veered from the somewhat controversial to the downright bizarre. The former Trump adviser Peter Navarro spoke on Wednesday just hours after being released from federal prison, telling the audience: “I went to prison so you don’t have to.” He ended his angry remarks by pulling his fiancee in for an awkward kiss.
In what may become the most enduring image from the convention, former wrestler Hulk Hogan took to the stage on Friday to deliver a full-throated endorsement of Trump. The speech culminated with Hogan tearing off his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt underneath, sparking loud applause from the cheering crowd.
The clashing messages foreshadowed the weighty task that Republicans face looking ahead to November, even with an edge in the polls; they must reach out to independent voters, many of whom disapprove of both the major presidential candidates, without alienating the hard-right loyalists who elevated Trump to his third nomination.
In an implicit acknowledgment of that dual task, many of Trump’s most unpopular opinions received little air time over the first three days of the convention. Mentions of election denialism, pardons for January 6 insurrectionists and Trump’s criminal cases were few and far between – even as the nominee himself could not resist attacking the “fake documents case” and the “partisan witch-hunts”. They also avoided mentions of pressing issues like abortion access, the climate crisis and gun safety, all of which are sure to be a primary focus at the Democratic convention in Chicago next month.
Instead, many speakers attempted to paint a softer picture of Trump. Family members, friends and former colleagues described Trump, who was recently convicted on charges related to paying hush money to his alleged mistress, as a devoted family man. They praised the former president, who infamously boasted about his tendency to “grab ’em by the pussy”, as a champion of women in the workplace.
The message was clear: forget what those awful Democrats have told you, the speakers said. This benevolent, innocent and powerful man is a paragon of good virtue who absolutely can – and should – be trusted with another four years in the White House, they argued.
The argument relies on a certain amount of amnesia of Trump’s chaotic first term, which often saw the then president firing members of his cabinet by tweet or musing about buying Greenland. But it would seem that a sort of national forgetfulness has already started falling over Trump’s years in office; a growing number of Americans now say that he left the nation better off, even though his presidency ended when the country was still in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic.
Somehow – after four criminal indictments, two impeachments and one failed assassination attempt – Trump is not only still standing but is now the favorite to win the presidential election in November.
The attendees of the Republican convention this week appeared optimistic and even relaxed, a mood that may reflect their confidence heading into the final stretch of election season. As “everyday American” speakers praised Trump’s policies on everything from the economy to foreign policy, convention-goers seemed secure in the knowledge that the man they view as a savior would soon return to the nation’s highest office.
Democrats have spent recent months trying to remind voters of the chaos that defined Trump’s presidency, but that argument has been somewhat undermined by the drama now encircling Biden’s campaign. Since Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, more than 20 Democratic members of Congress have called on him to withdraw from the presidential race, with the Montana senator Jon Tester joining their ranks just moments before Trump took the stage on Thursday.
As Biden quarantines in his home state of Delaware after testing positive for Covid (again), it remains deeply unclear whether he will be the Democrat facing off against Trump in November. Those questions overshadowed much of the Republican convention this week, but they also bolstered Republicans’ efforts to present themselves as the more unified and organized party – even if they, and Trump, have not fundamentally changed course.
