National Review Online
Friday, July 19, 2024
Rarely has the appearance of a party’s nominee on a
convention stage been as intensely anticipated as that of Donald Trump in
Milwaukee.
Nearly assassinated last Saturday and still bandaged from
his wound to his ear, Trump was rapturously greeted each time he entered the
convention hall this week, and his speech was tantalizingly teased as
completely reworked after the shooting last weekend.
The emotional centerpiece of the address, of course, was Trump’s riveting account of his
near-assassination. He delivered it in a soft, earnest tone that we’ve never
heard before. He seemed genuinely moved and humbled, and attributed his
survival to the grace of God. He paid tribute at length to the firefighter who
was killed at his rally, the former fire chief Corey Comperatore, and two
others who were seriously injured. This was, indeed, a different Trump.
From there, he delivered a lengthy, rambling, repetitive
speech, clocking in at a record one hour and 32 minutes. As he combined lengthy
riffs with his teleprompter text, often leaving and returning to topics
multiple times, the performance became more like a restrained, low-affect rally
than a focused convention speech.
Trump stayed mostly positive (although he couldn’t resist
references to Democrats “cheating” in 2020) and mostly spoke in a quieter tone
than usual. Along with his impromptu tributes to the speakers and performers
from earlier in the evening and his prediction of a good upcoming season for
the Green Bay Packers, he hit all the issues where Biden is vulnerable, and
promised to kill inflation, keep taxes low, pursue deregulation, secure the
border, and restore America’s strength and deterrence abroad. He also
emphasized his signature hostility to trade — calling on the head of the UAW to
be fired for allowing cars to get manufactured in Mexico — and pledged to
protect Social Security and Medicare.
As a speech, it was a fizzle. Trump and the Republicans
are sitting pretty, though. The party was unified and energized in Milwaukee,
while the Democrats have been in the throes of a crisis that seems likely now
to result in the defenestration of President Joe Biden. Who knows, if it
happens, how that will play out — whether Democrats emerge still divided with
another weak candidate or newly united behind someone formidable. Regardless,
Republicans have to hope that Trump, who has been willing to listen to his
advisers more than usual during this campaign, will be more disciplined going
forward than he was at the podium last night.
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