We're Watching The Republican Convention So You Don't Have To
For four nights this week, the radicalism of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement will be on full display.
The Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee on Monday, and by the afternoon, Donald Trump had officially become the party’s nominee for president after a roll call vote of delegates.
Trump will officially accept the nomination during a speech closing out the convention on Thursday night. In between, we can expect a lot of slickly produced speeches and video packages boosting Trump as the GOP nominee.
But there was nothing slick about how much of Monday played out.
The news of Trump’s official nomination was completely drowned out by the announcement that Trump had chosen Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance to be his Vice Presidential running mate, an announcement that awkwardly came just as delegates were voting.
All of this comes just days after a disturbed 20-year-old shooter—who was a registered Republican and a gun enthusiast—attempted to assassinate Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. This prompted the former president to insist that the tone of his convention speech will shift to, as he put it on Truth Social on Sunday:
But by Monday, Trump was already slinging the same divisive rhetoric we’ve come to expect from him, as he reacted to the news that his classified documents case had been dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon, a federal judge he appointed.
Shocking, I know.
This week, we are watching the RNC 2024 so you don’t have to. And in today’s piece, I’ll summarize what we know so far from day one of the convention and preview the week to come as a who’s who of Republican Trump devotees and Trump family members take the stage in Milwaukee.
I’ll also look at what sort of polling boost we can expect Trump to carry out of the convention, if any, and what this week could mean for the November general election.
As we get closer to the election, we’ll be providing special deep dives like our RNC 2024 coverage to help keep you informed. If you find pieces like this helpful and you’re financially able to, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to support our work today.
“Peace, Unity, And Love”
After the tragic shooting that wounded Donald Trump in his right ear and took the life of a supporter who attended the rally, The Washington Examiner reported that Trump promised a new tone at the convention, saying:
“Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”
“It is a chance to bring the country together.”
We’ve certainly heard many unfulfilled promises of a “new” Trump tone over the years. But Tucker Carlson—himself a convention speaker— made clear that he for one is a believer.
As reported by Axios:
“I think it's real. Getting shot in the face changes a man.”
In fact, coverage of this supposed tonal shift led Fox News to post—with a straight face—an unintentionally hilarious graphic about what Trump is going to run on now:
As the media ate up the narrative, it was subsequently reported that convention speakers were instructed to “change nothing” about their speeches. Said one source who was familiar with the speaking arrangements:
“Trump is setting the tone, and the tone is business as usual.”
Said another:
“The guidance has been not to change speeches.”
Certainly, with his combative Truth Social post on Monday, Trump signaled just that: Nothing about the convention was ever actually going to change in the wake of Saturday’s attack. But hilariously, one convention speaker, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, appeared not to get the memo.
On Monday night, Johnson delivered a speech during which he railed against the “Democrat agenda,” calling it a “clear and present danger to America.” But then when asked by a reporter if that speech was really consistent with all the protestations by Republicans to dial down the rhetoric since the events of Saturday, Johnson blamed his speech on convention organizers.
Whoops!
President Joe Biden’s campaign, for its part, has reportedly paused all campaign ads and “outbound communications” in the wake of the attack. Whether this pause will be lifted as the convention continues is unclear, although Biden did signal a return to a more combative tone during his interview with Lester Holt on Monday night.
But considering Republicans’ continued full bore campaign mode, many Democrats think it’s time for Biden to get back on the air. As Claire McCaskill put it on MSNBC Monday night:
“I would say this to the Biden campaign: I think it’s time to start campaigning again, like tomorrow. If you listened to Ron Johnson’s speech tonight at the convention, if you saw some of the things that Trump said today, you know, it’s time. Listen, we are all shocked and horrified by what happened on Saturday, but as Nicolle said, it’s 115 days.”
Loyalty Over Country
For many, Donald Trump’s choice of Senator JD Vance as his running mate on Monday was a strange pick. As former Obama advisor Dan Pfieffer posted on X:
Usually, a VP pick is meant to shore up some constituency or at the very least, do no harm. But in the wake of the attempted assassination of Trump over the weekend, the choice will garner particular scrutiny of Vance’s youth and inexperience. At 39 years old and having served only 18 months in the U.S. Senate, it’s hard to justify putting Vance one heartbeat away from the presidency in this political environment.
Vance is also on the wrong side of most issues with the American people. He is no moderate uniting pick; he is a MAGA radical who is pushing Project 2025 on steroids, even more than Trump himself.
As Rachel Maddow laid out in an epic segment on MSNBC Monday night, Vance opposes any exceptions for abortion and favors a national abortion ban, thinks women who are victims of domestic abuse should be forced to stay in their abusive marriages, and calls those convicted of raiding the Capitol on January 6th “hostages.”
Awkwardly, Vance is also a well-known former self-described “Never Trumper,” having called Trump back in 2016 “a moral disaster” and famously wondered in a private message whether he was “America’s Hitler.”
While Vance has said he has come around on Trump and was wrong all those years ago when he said those things, does it really help Trump to have all these anti-Trump messages resurface in this moment, spoken by the very man Trump has picked to be his right hand in the White House?
Awwkwaard…
But for Trump, none of that seems to matter. Instead, what matters most is Vance’s devotion to MAGA and his loyalty to Trump himself, notably:
1. His 2020 election denialism and his refusal to accept the results of the 2024 election no matter the outcome,
2. His insistence that if he were Vice President on January 6th, 2021, he would have overturned the will of the voters as Mike Pence refused to do, and
3. His pledge to dismantle the administrative state as the MAGA movement and Project 2025 dictate.
That for Trump is the true litmus test. With his pick of Vance, it’s clear what Trump’s priority is and always has been: Trump over country.
Rachel’s takedown of Vance is well worth the watch:
The RNC 2024 Agenda
In addition to officially nominating Trump as their presidential nominee, on Monday the GOP delegates officially ratified the party’s platform, a 16-page document dedicated “to the Forgotten men and Women of America.” According to Senator Marsha Blackburn’s speech on Monday, the platform was “personally reviewed, edited, and approved” by Trump. And yeah, that tracks.
As The Washington Post puts it:
Some sections quote Trump verbatim, using key phrases from his rallies, while others heavily echo his signature grievances, baseless claims and bluster. Notably, a section of 20 promises that the platform makes to Americans is written in all-caps, in his distinctive voice.
In a surprise development, Trump himself made an appearance on the first night of the convention, awkwardly walking out with bandaged ear to sit with his family and his newly minted VP pick in the audience to watch the proceedings.
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To add to the surreal spectacle, the theme of Monday night was “Make America Wealthy Once Again,” of course conveniently ignoring the economic devastation Trump left the nation in at the end of his term.
Each of the four nights of the 4-day GOP convention this week has its own theme, named after a variation on Trump’s campaign slogan except with the added word “Once” thrown in to assuage Trump’s little ego, as though Trump accomplished any of these things during his disastrous term.
NIGHT TWO: “Make America Safe Once Again”
NIGHT THREE: “Make America Strong Once Again”
NIGHT FOUR: “Make America Great Once Again”
So, is it MAGOA now?
To advance Monday night’s theme, speakers such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Byron Donalds, and Senator Marsha Blackburn spread lies about the Biden economy, which by all measures is outpacing Trump’s.
Jeff Stein of The Washington Post was happy to fact-check the very premise of the Night One theme:
And others weighed in as well:
Oh, and then there was North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, the Trump-endorsed candidate for governor of the state who famously said “some people need killing” at a recent public appearance.
That guy got a prime speaking slot. Unity indeed.
For the rest of the week, expect more of the same, with Night Two on Tuesday focusing on immigration, featuring speeches from former rivals Gov. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Also featured at the convention this week will be Trump family members Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle as well as Eric and Lara Trump, more members of Congress including Senators Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Katie Britt, Reps. Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Trump’s former doctor Ronny Jackson as well as Governors Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Doug Burgum.
On Wednesday night, Donald Trump Jr. will introduce VP pick JD Vance ahead of his headlining speech, and then on Thursday, Donald Trump will officially accept the nomination.
A Trump Bump?
Considering the RNC began just 2 days after Donald Trump was shot, it will be nearly impossible to tell if any polling bump Trump gets after this week is attributable to the convention or to sympathy in the wake of the attack.
But traditionally, candidates do enjoy some sort of polling boost after their convention, although not to the same extent as they used to.
As Scripps News points out:
From 1964 up to the 2000s, candidates received about a 6-7 percentage point increase in the polls. But since 2004 the average bounce has been about 2.5 points, according to experts like Thomas Holbrook. The reason why:
"Nowadays with the back-to-back conventions and the conventions tending to be held much later in the season," Holbrook said. "And one of the reasons that's important is that people have had a bit more time to evaluate the candidates already."
In 2016, for example, Trump received a boost of a few points out of his convention, which was essentially wiped out after Hillary Clinton and Democrats held theirs the following week.
In 2020, Trump’s convention was held at the very end of August, and by early September, FiveThirtyEight reported:
Trump may have enjoyed a very slight convention bounce, but one that represents only a small boost compared to where the race stood before the party conventions — and even that small bounce is showing some signs of fading.
The timing of this week’s RNC—coming directly off the attempt on Trump’s life and coinciding with news that his classified documents case had been thrown out, on top of JD Vance’s selection as Trump’s VP pick—seems designed for maximum polling impact. Joe Biden and Democrats will benefit from having the last word when their convention begins on August 19 in Chicago. But unlike four years ago, it’s Democrats this time who need the bounce coming out of their convention, and not a fleeting one.
The good news for Democrats is that Republicans are reminding voters this week of their extreme agenda, their radical elected leaders, and the unfitness of their standard bearers to lead our country.
The choice of JD Vance to be Trump’s number two would seem to pose a particular vulnerability for Trump among centrist and swing voters. Or as Democratic commentator Kaivan Shroff put it, his pick is a “massive gift” to Democrats.
Because, honestly Vance is essentially Project 2025 in human form, and just the sort of extreme candidate that Democrats ably trounced in 2022 in Senate races around the country.
And indeed, Democrats wasted no time in going on the attack on Monday, per Politico:
“Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6; bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, who chairs President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, said in a statement.
And:
“A Trump-Vance administration will jeopardize reproductive freedom in all 50 states,” Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said on the Biden campaign call Monday afternoon. “We know they have no plans to stop at overturning Roe.”
It’s too early to know how this week’s convention will play out, but one thing is certain: the Republicans’ extreme radicalism, as well as their lies and division, will be on full display, despite their attempts to play things down for mainstream consumption. It is on all of us to expose and amplify the truth to ensure the electorate understands the consequences of a second Trump term.
I thank you for your service. I'll start a GoFundMe campaign to address any mental health issues that might crop up while servicing your fellow sufferers.
I also would like to formally thank Trump for choosing Vance as his VP. This makes attacking the agenda much easier.
What a great headline. How did you know I was tired of Trump sucking the air out of the room? The TV is off and I'm in my large library with good books, hot tea, and intelligent friends. At some point, we have to pay attention to our own mental health and stay aware to well being and the people who love us.