The Republican National Convention: A Short-Lived Call for Unity

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump shook the political landscape and narrative that was settling after President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate performance.

The Democratic Party establishment was fighting calls for him to withdraw his nomination and pave the way for a more electable candidate.

His unfortunate gaffes at the NATO summit – calling Ukrainian President Zelenskiy “President Putin” and his Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” – and an opinion piece by actor, activist, and prolific Democratic fundraiser, George Clooney, continued to feed into the controversy.

Republicans were set to exploit President Biden’s age, and Democrats would categorize Trump as a convicted felon who is unfit for office. That all changed in a matter of seconds.

A bullet that came within millimeters of traumatizing an entire nation was now responsible for what seemed to be a sincere effort by both parties to tone down the political rhetoric and promote national unity. Then came the Republican National Convention.

Do as I say, not as I do

In the days after his assassination attempt, Trump stated that he was rewriting his convention speech to reflect a message of unity. He is scheduled to deliver the headlining speech tonight, and I suspect that his remarks will be tame and slightly different from what we’ve come to expect in his almost 10 years of delivering political speeches.

Illegal aliens, criminals, foreign aggressors, and murderers are some of the descriptions that got the most rousing crowd responses when referring to immigrants.

In an awkward moment, Florida Senator Marco Rubio referred to his own immigrant story, and the crowd didn’t know what to do. Should we cheer? It was sad to see they had been conditioned to believe that “immigrant” or “immigration” are automatically negative words.

What was on display at that stage in Milwaukee was Trump’s transition from being the messenger of division and hate, to having others (even former critics and opponents) do the necessary dirty work to continue to ignite his base with the messages they have come to expect and that unite them.

The calls to diminish division and cool the political climate rhetoric lasted only two days. In what has resembled cult-like speeches expressing adoration and admiration for former President Trump, national Republican figures like Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio, and others have enthusiastically delivered speeches filled with the exact hate that they claim needs to be toned down.

They all made it seem as if the would-be assassin was a Biden supporter, that it was Biden’s policies and divisive rhetoric that made him target their beloved Trump. He was not. He was a Republican, he was a Trump supporter, and his parents proudly displayed Trump lawn signs.

Donald Trump regresa oficialmente a la contienda por la presidencia de EU

Normalizing violence

Biden ran for president in 2020 on a message of national unity and against the violence that Donald Trump incited in Charlottesville, Virginia.

You might have forgotten about the deadly incident in which white supremacists felt comfortable enough to march with torches down public streets yelling “you will not replace us”, “blood and soil”, “Russia is our friend”, and “the South will rise again”.

Trump normalized their behavior saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Republicans would like for us to forget Trump’s constant social media harassment and aggression towards his opponents, even against judges and “law and order” figures that Republicans so proudly claim to be a foundation of their principles. It was this aggressive behavior that got him banned from Twitter in the first place.

I can recall at least two speeches, all from women, in which they minimized his social media aggression. They justified it as a means to an end, saying things like: “even if it came with a few mean tweets.”

Most importantly, you have January 6^th. The deadly “protest” of Trump supporters and “freedom fighters” he claims he did not inspire or motivate. These “protesters” were looking for his own Vice President, Mike Pence, to kill him. They were looking for House Minority Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to kill her. And Trump had no critique, he just said: “stand back, stand by”.

When Nancy Pelosi’s husband was brutally attacked in his own home by a right-winger who had succumbed to the Republican narrative of aggression, Republicans first claimed it was her husband’s gay lover. These are the people calling for a reduction of violence in America’s political rhetoric.

An image is worth a thousand words

The speakers at the Convention would have you believe that God himself saved Donald Trump.

There was a very dangerous association between God’s intervention and Trump’s perceived sacrifices and persecution – as if he was a messiah. They even implied that his legal troubles and criminal conviction were sacrifices he made for you, for America, to make America Great Again. How dare you not support this man who almost gave his life for you?

Fight, fight, fight. There’s no denying it, it is a powerful image, and it could not have come at a worse time for Biden. While he struggles to portray vitality, enthusiasm, and confidence that he has the health to serve a second term, Trump is now running on an image of resilience and defiance. As a friend of mine told me:

“Trump looks like he’s ready to die for America and Biden looks like he’s just dying, period.”

It’s hard to argue against that.

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There’s still a glimmer of hope

There’s also no denying that the Republican National Convention has been a well-orchestrated affair. Timing doesn’t favor Democrats either. The Democratic National Convention is a month away, and there’s a dark cloud hanging over the party right now.

Biden has to step aside, he has to realize that he can’t win, that his image took a devastating blow that night in Atlanta, and that he’s not recovering from that. What was a list of five or six battleground states is rapidly growing. Democrats lost valuable time in the weeks after the debate, now they are running out of time to make that change.

Whoever the new Democratic Party candidate is, he or she is being put in a lose-lose situation. There’s no time to establish an identity. They will be running as the second-best option. They will be running as the “hope against Trump” candidate, and that’s not going to be enough in this political climate.

Yesterday, Reuters released a poll conducted after the assassination attempt that demonstrated Donald Trump didn’t receive a boost in popularity. 43% favor Trump, 41% favor Biden. That is well within the margin of error.

This gives Democrats a glimmer of hope and it reinforces my argument that regardless of whatever happens, voters are not changing their minds. This election will be won by “getting out the vote”, and by exciting and mobilizing voter bases in key states.

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