On Thursday night, less than a week after surviving an assassination attempt, Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee for the third time, was introduced to the Republican delegates alternatively as a loving and devoted family man and as a visionary fighter and leader protected by divine intervention.
It was the culmination of a very different sort of Republican convention, forcibly coordinated by Trump family and aides, with the usual politics and policy issues giving way to unabashed adulation of Trump, the source of all solutions to all the problems, real and imagined, besetting the United States and its citizens. The ebullient mood was boosted by drama elsewhere about Joe Biden’s capacity to govern and ability to win.
The expectation was that this would be no ordinary acceptance speech. The bloodied hero who had chanted “Fight, fight, fight” as he was lifted from the stage at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally was apparently a changed man, humbled by his brush with death, looking to soften his divisive and harsh rhetoric. Just the day after the shooting Trump had called for unity and a broad resistance to “Evil.”
Trump’s speech began with his sombre — if highly reworked and elaborated — description of his shooting, and the first twenty minutes gave some signs of a new political focus. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said.
But then he turned away from his prepared remarks and returned to the customary meandering attacks on his political rivals, the litany of America’s dystopian troubles, some fanciful riffs on his imagined successes as presidency and his unique ability to address current issues and, of course, diatribes against his victimisation.
Unity got the occasional mention, but now they were much more barbed. “We must not criminalise dissent or demonise political disagreement, which is what’s been happening in our country lately at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said. “In that spirit, the Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponising the justice system and labelling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy. Especially since that is not true. In fact, I am the one saving democracy for the people of our country.”
More than ninety minutes later, it was painfully obvious that the new Trump was the same old Trump. His push for unity didn’t mean abandoning his divisive politics; more likely it was a call for his opponents to stop criticising him, even a plea for sympathy. As Philip Bump wrote in the Washington Post, “The imaginary Trump ‘unity’ pivot was just another demand for fealty.”
At a time when the Democrats are in disarray — perhaps even in the throes of replacing Biden as their presidential nominee — Trump’s ego and lack of discipline seem to have again lost him the opportunity to expand his political base. There was little in this speech to woo the Never Trumpers, those who voted for Nikki Haley in the primaries even after she had withdrawn her candidacy, or the Biden doubters.
As weak as Biden (or any other Democrat) appears in the current polls, Trump can’t win in November without expanding his support beyond his rusted-on, ultra-conservative, Make America Great Again base. But he appears to have little interest in doing so.
His selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate exemplifies this mindset. He could have chosen an African American (for example, senator Tim Scott from South Carolina), a Hispanic (senator Marco Rubio was apparently being considered) or a woman (after all, he did welcome Nikki Haley’s return to the Trump camp) as a means of broadening his appeal. But he chose a young white man with virtually no experience in government.
It’s a pick that plays to the ideology of the populist right. The hope is that it will help secure Republican votes in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which are essential for a Democratic path to presidential victory. And it could mean that the elderly Trump is looking to lock in MAGA Republicans for years to come.
As a member of the so-called “New Right,” an ideology fervent about Christian nationalism and America First anti-internationalism, Vance is in many ways more MAGA than Trump, despite his every recent conversion to the Trump side of politics. Vance, like Trump, is adept at telling people what they want to hear. For both of them, political principles are negotiable or can be couched in hazy language.
This is highlighted by the considerable efforts Trump has made to deny his strong links to those who have produced Project 2025, the conservative manifesto for a second Trump term. His staff reworked the Republican platform into Trump language — including the usual unnecessary capitalisations — that avoids all specifics on controversial issues like abortion. It was noticeable that Vance’s acceptance speech made no mention of aid to Ukraine, a divisive issue in the Republican party.
Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist at the Manhattan Institute, describes Vance as “still thinking, still learning, still positioning,” which could also mean he’s malleable to Trump’s will. As president, Trump is unlikely to hand him much responsibility, so a yes man is ideal. Vance has already indicated he would have done what vice-president Mike Pence refused to do — ignore the constitution and try to derail certification of Trump’s 2020 election loss.
But Vance has ambition and may be impatient. A possible early conflict was on show at the convention. Trump, who is courting both labour and business, seems willing to risk some corporate alienation on issues like tariffs and immigration as long as Vance can send the right messages to the blue-collar voters who are now key Republican supporters. If it gets difficult, Trump will almost certainly take the side of big business, with consequences for Vance’s blue collar vision.
Several other ominous signs suggest that a second Trump term would mean legally dubious business-as-usual, or worse. Both Paul Manafort (Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman who was jailed for financial crimes) and Peter Navarro (a former Trump advisor who was jailed for contempt of Congress) were feted at the convention.
Outside the convention, the legal cases against Trump have been dismissed (perhaps temporarily) or are proceeding at a snail’s pace. The US Supreme Court has ruled that he has broad immunity from prosecution for any acts he may commit as president. And even if he fails to win the presidency, there is likely trouble ahead: there are reports that the Republican Party is busy laying the groundwork to contest loss in an election they claim is already being rigged against Trump.
With his legal woes fading, his control of the Republican Party complete, his deification sealed and the Democrats with no certain presidential candidate, Trump should now be facing the next few months at his zenith, unstoppable and confident in a November victory. The stars aligned to present Trump with the perfect opportunity to crush the Democrats’ chances. Instead, with a speech seen in most quarters as a squandered opportunity, he has given them hope.
For now, we are back to two old men — both unpopular — running for the most powerful political office in the United States. Increasingly, though, the signs are that one side of the equation could change very soon, with Biden leaving the race, but Trump may have lost the advantage inherent in this Democratic debacle. •
