Politics as usual is politics a la former President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention. Last week’s GOP lovefest was laced with contradictions and calumny.
The joyous celebratory sessions were replete with “populist” claims of concern for the working man and woman.
At the same time, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, announced he is donating $45 million a month to a political action committee that is backing Trump’s reelection campaign.
Mea culpas abounded at the convention. Trump’s once-bitterly sworn enemies are now admiring allies: JD Vance, the party’s gleaming new vice presidential nominee, as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who fiercely competed with Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. They all thoroughly trashed the former president, and he gleefully excoriated them in return.
Last week, it was all love. Take Haley’s blandishments toward Trump, as she declared that “there are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time” Tuesday night at the convention podium.
“My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him,” she added, in her “strong endorsement” of the former president.
Really? Apparently, Haley got over the hateful nicknames Trump lobbed at her during the primaries, when he dubbed her “birdbrain” and “Nikki ‘Nimbra’ Haley,” a racist jab at her Indian heritage.
The adoring thousands of her fellow GOPers assiduously overlooked Trump’s 34 felony convictions in a New York City courtroom; his efforts to overturn the 2020 election; his culpability in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol; and his infinite torrent of lies. There was nary a mention of that at the Milwaukee festivities. The celebrants also had little to say about the plague of guns that has overtaken the nation.
In the wake of the terrifying assassination attempt on Trump, guns are not considered a problem for his party — or America. In fact, guns are a welcome voting accessory, at least according to U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, the Republican who represents Illinois’ 15th District, based in Hindsboro, about 40 miles south of Champaign.
On the second day of the convention, Miller, who led Illinois’ delegation, spoke to reporters at a hotel near Milwaukee. “We need to get people out to vote. If just gun owners would come out and vote in Illinois, we could flip the state red. So, get people out to vote. Everybody has a realm of influence. Get busy, people,” the Chicago Tribune quoted her as saying.
She blasted the media for what she says is unfair coverage of Trump. “The media has demonized President Trump. Name-calling. That’s what my little kids did. Name-calling,” Miller said.
No one in politics has perfected the practice of name-calling better than Trump.
For Democrats, an ominous sign was that all last week, the news channels were chattering about the success of the GOP confab. The top pros in finance, politics and other industries are already concluding that Trump will return to the White House in 2025.
On Wednesday, the talking heads on the business channel CNBC were asking: Will Vance, the newly minted GOP vice presidential candidate, be business-friendly?
Trump values loyalty above all. He jettisoned former Vice President Mike Pence because Pence refused to help him steal the 2020 election. But Trump may have miscalculated with the hyper-ambitious Vance. Trump had better watch his back. Vance is already measuring the curtains in Washington, and not the ones at the vice president’s residence.
“Unity” was the theme of the week. The adoring delegates are certainly unified on the certainty that Trump will return as their commander in chief. The rest of the nation, not so much.
Trump is the master marketer. He managed to turn his near assassination into a victorious battle cry. While bleeding and in mortal danger, he pushed back on his Secret Service protectors and turned to the camera with a raised fist and the battle cry, “Fight, fight, fight!”
Always the calculating showman, Trump spun his brush with death into a commanding advertisement of his strength, resilience and power, just in time for his convention. As his obsequious orators exhorted, day after day, on the convention floor, that is true “leadership.”
Meanwhile, Biden retreated to his sickbed to contend with the coughs and runny nose of COVID-19 and hide from a rising crescendo of calls for him to abandon his ill-fated presidential campaign.
By Sunday, he’d thrown in the towel.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Monday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.
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