The Truce Is Over

By Judson Berger

Friday, July 19, 2024

 

The “era of good will” in the 2024 presidential race sure was brief.

 

Yes, unmistakably, Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech showcased a side of the man we’ve never seen before, maybe he’s never seen himself: subdued, soft-spoken, reflective. He spoke Thursday night of God, of feeling “serene” in the moment as bullets flew. His brush with death changed him, that he can tell you. And he made appeals for unity, saying he’s running to be president “for all of America, not half of America.” But Trump, even the low-energy and rambling Trump who took over from his somber half partway in, minced no words indicting his successor’s “failed” and “incompetent” leadership — on the border, inflation, and global chaos — and neither did the GOP convention’s other speakers.

 

“I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created,” Trump boasted. Beneath the serenity, a familiar case was being made.

 

And on the Democratic side, the warnings that Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and is plotting an “extreme” attack on the American way of life have picked right back up again. President Biden on Friday declared without qualification that his rival wants to “rule as a dictator on day one.”

 

The attempt on the former president’s life last weekend shocked the race — but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the apocalyptic terms in which the election contest is being waged.

 

Looking back on this historic week, the quasi-truce that was observed between the parties after the shooting can be seen breaking down two days later. As Andy McCarthy noted, Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the Trump documents case (which, for the record, Andy anticipated) gave Democrats an opening to go on offense. Then Trump opted against a more conciliatory, bridge-building VP pick and announced he had chosen J. D. Vance. Then Biden, right after calling on the country to lower the temperature in politics, doubled down on his allegation that Trump represents a “threat to democracy,” while the DNC warned that the newly named GOP ticket “would undermine our democracy.”

 

As for the tacit truce that briefly calmed turmoil inside the Democratic Party over whether Biden should pass the torch — it, too, was cracking by Wednesday, when Pelosi ally and Trump antagonist Adam Schiff called on the president to drop out. A string of Biden appearances made clear that he is not getting any better, and arguably has gotten worse since his face-plant debate. Within 24 hours, the coup appeared back on, with even Joe Scarborough joining and Washington now atwitter with speculation that Biden could be convinced to step aside as the campaign fights back. The nominating calendar and old-fashioned hubris could yet defeat the effort to pressure him out — but party elders (and juniors) clearly have not forgotten about the issue that consumed them right up until Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire.

 

Speaking of hubris: This contest’s sharp turns should chasten operatives and columnists (including this one, whose mention last week of a smooth and uneventful nomination was catastrophically off the mark) trying to predict the course of the next few months. The one thing we can say with confidence, as Mark Wright did earlier this month, is that Trump’s uncanny luck has become an undeniable force, an X factor of immeasurable potency — an in-kind donation from the gods that nobody should tell Alvin Bragg about. Dan McLaughlin charts the remarkable sequence of favorable breaks here, up to and including the Republican nominee’s split-second turn from gunfire and subsequent victory in federal court.

 

Noah Rothman writes of a “near-cosmic confluence of events” working against the Democrats. Speakers on the GOP convention’s final night milked the idea, too. But even if the Fates are meddling in this election, the sustained vitriol on display and the convulsive effort to oust a sitting president from his party’s ticket indicate the actors in this political drama are determined to control their destiny.

 

Trump lowered the volume in the 2024 election Thursday night. But don’t be fooled: Neither side has lowered the temperature.