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MILWAUKEE — No one doubts that Donald Trump united the Republican delegates, alternates and hangers on who gathered in Milwaukee Thursday night to witness acceptence of the nomination of the Republican Party on a program that featured Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and the CEO of the mixed martial arts promotion company Ultimate Fighting Championship. Even the bedraggled supporters of Nikki Haley – who famously dismissed the former president as “unstable and unhinged” and announced that “I do not need to kiss the ring” of her rival for the party’s nod – joined the former United Nations Ambassador in giving Trump their “strong,” if humiliating, endorsement.
Speaker after speaker hailed Trump as “a hero,” “a tough guy,” “a champion,” “a gladiator” and an “American Bad Ass.” The Rev. Franklin Graham announced that, “Last Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, President Trump had a near-death experience. No question. But God spared his life.” When Trump recalled the assassination attempt, he told the crowd, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight.” They responded, “Yes, you are.”
So it went with a rambling, oddly subdued speech — “much more muted than usual,” observed the Associated Press. Through much of the night, Trump spoke almost in a monotone, rarely raising his voice. The crowd didn’t care. Trump was constantly interrupted by screams of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “We love you!”
By any and every measure, this really was Donald Trump’s convention and he was basking in it, welcoming and encouraging the cheers, embracing the adulation on the last night of a four-day love fest where speaker after speaker pledged absolute loyalty to his candidacy.
And Trump made it clear that he thought that he deserved it all.
“I am the one saving democracy for the people of our country,” the candidate announced early in a long and congratulatory acceptance speech.
After a decade of having to wrestle with “Never Trump” Republicans who openly rejected him, and with the far greater community of “If It Must Be Trump, So Be It” Republicans, who grudgingly supported him, the alleged billionaire and multiply-convicted felon finally had the Grand Old Party where he wanted it: cheering him with the bleary-eyed enthusiasm of the MAGA cultists he has encouraged them to become.
This is the twist that the 2024 Republican National Convention has put on American politics.
There are no longer any pretenses to traditional Republicanism, to the Grand Old Party, to history or to values. The loyalty is to a man, not a party. And that gives Democrats, dispirited and in disarray because of the conflict over President Biden’s uncertain prospects, an opening. They can speak, more loudly than ever, about the problem with a cult-of-personality politics that has very little vision for America — beyond Trump’s recitation of 2016 and 2020 bumber sticker slogans: “Drill Baby Drill!” and “Close Our Borders” and “I Could Stop Wars With a Telephone Call.” Of course, there was the usual slurry of gripes about the reelection race he didn’t win and the Democratic administration that succeeded him. And there were the even more usual errors — like the section of the speech where Trump repeatedly gave shoutouts to the governor of Wisconsin, Democrat Tony Evers, who wasn’t present.
The vision thing going to be a problem for Trump once the convention ends and the campaign begins.
Gone are the days when Trump — whose personal favorability ratings remains dismal: 42.2 percent, in the Real Clear Politics survey of recent polls — could rely on the coherent, if wrong-headed Republican vision of former House Speaker Paul Ryan and similarly serious conservartives to fill in the blanks and secure his candidacy. Ryan, whose support was critical to narrowly winning the state of Wisconsin for the GOP in 2016, wasn’t even at this year’s GOP convention–despite the fact that his hometown of Janesville is just 60 miles away from the Fiserv Forum where Trump announced on Thursday night that he would be “a president for all of America.”
For his part, Ryan has announced that he won’t be voting for Trump in 2024. The same goes for Utah Senator Mitt Romney, Ryan’s president running mate on the party’s 2012 presidential ticket. Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, who survived the wrath of Trump backers when he rejected their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, now says, “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.”
Pence complains that Trump’s remake of the Republican Party platform to downplay discussions about conservative hot-button issues, such as restricting access to abortion and banning Chinese ownership of the social media app TikTok,Pence grumbles that, “In each of these cases,” said Pence, “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.”
Trump hailed the unity of the GOP in his carefully constructed speech — and the potential of his candidacy to unite the nation — with sweeping lines like…
But that made-for-TV appeal from a former reality-TV doesn’t match reality. While this week’s Associated Press poll found that 70 percent of Americans – including 65 percent of Democrats – thought that President Biden should end his candidacy, a striking 57 of Americans – including 26 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of independents – want Trump to exit the race.
Trump’s numbers in a race against the Democratic nominee, be it Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, make tick up a bit in coming days. That’s predictable after a week where America have witnessed an assassination attempt on Trump, the selection of a vice presidential nominee and a successful Party convention – as well as the unraveling of Biden’s bid.
But the fundamentals of the 2024 race have not changed. To win in November, Trump needs more than the support of the party loyalists who literally attached bandages to their ears in order to mimic the look of the former president, whose upper ear was injured in the assassination attempt. It will require as absolutely united Republican Party outside the convention hall, as well as the overwhelming support of independents who have traditionally leaned Republican. Yet, the Republican Party that appealed to those slightly swingy voters is no more. And the long-time Republicans who might draw them into the fold – the Ryans and Romneys and Cindy McCain’s — were far from the convention hall in Milwaukee. They won’t show up for him on the campaign trail this fall. In fact, some of the most prominent of their number will very probably hit the trail for the Democratic ticket.
Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican rising star from Illinois, warns that Trump would “hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power.” Kinzinger endorsed Biden weeks ago, and would almost certainly back a Harris-led ticket.
Losing Republicans like Kinzinger and Ryan, who dismisses Trump as an “authoritarian narcissist” rather than a “conservative” and promises to write-in an alternative candidate, is a serious matter. These aren’t “Never Trump” adventurers who jumped off the Trump train before the 2016 election and never got back on. These are people who once campaigned for Trump and were critical to his success in the only partisan race he ever won.
The Republican Party that made Trump the president in 2016 is gone. It has over the past eight years been replaced by the Party of Trump. And, despite the fact that the former president has united a convention in Milwaukee, this is not the party of a united American electorate. There is plenty of dissent and division, much of it a reaction to Trump’s extremist record on everything from abortion to cutting taxes for the rich. To be sure, Trump tried to position himself as a more moderate and appealing contender in his acceptance speech Thursday night. But his appeals to XXX won’t cause Americans to forget the chaos and conflict that were associated with his presidency. Smooth words on a Thursday night in Milwaukee won’t make Trump’s recent talk of governing as a dictator, or diminish the threat posed by the 2025 scheme to remake the federal government in Trump’s image and as a plaything for the plutocrats of Wall Street.
Trump did his victory lap this week. But the convention is now done, and the campaign – as confusing and uncertain and unwritten as it may remain – is on. It will not be easy for either party.
But it is absurd to suggest that Trump’s opposition lacks the openings it will need to win.
Beating Trump won’t be any easier than it was in 2020. But Democrats are better positioned that the pundits will tell you to run against the man and what has become of the Republican Party — because, while the GOP, is now a cult of personality, the United States is not.
