Never mind the past. As the convention in Milwaukee makes clear, if you love Trump now, you’re in.
Never mind the past. As the convention in Milwaukee makes clear, if you love Trump now, you’re in.
Milwaukee — In September 1859, Abraham Lincoln came to Milwaukee to promote a new Republican Party. This week, just a few blocks from where Lincoln spoke, Donald Trump himself unveiled an entirely new Republican Party, formed in his own image and free of what his supporters think are the shackles of traditional conservatism.
Much of the change within the GOP is due to the new brand of voter the party has attracted. Because the modern Republican Party doesn’t care what you’ve done or where you’ve been, they’re just happy you are with them now. They are willing to give you a pass for your past indiscretions and for being too mean to Donald Trump.
Political conventions by definition lack any humility, and the Republican National Convention 2024 has delivered on that score. Here in Milwaukee, there is much discussion of how God looked down at Donald Trump, placed his hand on the former president’s shoulder, and nudged him a centimeter to the left to make sure Trump was only clipped by a would-be assassin’s bullet. (No doubt a close call like that would set anyone to thinking about divine intervention.)
The RNC has brought all of its bluster and pageantry to a city known for its humility. “Over the years, Milwaukee has been described in a variety of ways, some of them complimentary,” writes Robert Wells in his book about the city, published in 1970. According to Wells, the Milwaukeean “regards his city with a wry affection that is unmixed with any illusion about its glamour, the way a husband looks on a wife who’ll never be asked to pose for Playboy but who’s a darn good cook.”
There is no such self-reflection around the grounds of Fiserv Forum, which is populated by hard-partying partisans bedecked in garish MAGA attire. And they have every reason to feel good — it appears the election has slipped away from Democrats as their rapidly decaying nominee, President Joe Biden, is willing (so far) to take the party down with him. The contrast couldn’t be more stark: Trump survived an assassin’s bullet with fist-pumping bravado, while Biden grouses to reporters about unfair questions regarding his age.
In fact, the entire RNC production is an exercise in contrasts. While the GOP has a nominee running in circumstances that are entirely unprecedented, the party has to make the official workings of the convention seem very much, well, precedented. Speeches are given, motions to amend the party platform are made, country music and classic-rock cover bands play . . . it is all strictly by the book as they nominate a former president who was just shot in the ear, is a convicted felon, and if elected, can wipe away dozens more felony counts against him. (Many of which deal with attempting to overturn the results of an election he lost.)
If there is any private hesitation to backing Trump, conventioneers are not showing it in public. Despite a small rally thrown by Never Trumpers off-site, the convention grounds near Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, which just happens to be adjacent to the very spot presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt was non-fatally shot in 1912, is overstuffed with attendees wearing gaudy red dresses and cowboy hats. The ten-gallon hats have supplanted the red MAGA baseball caps as the favored headwear of conventioneers, reminding them of a simpler time marked by rugged individualism. (And no drug or immigration laws, which Republicans want to strengthen, but . . . details.)
“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result,” wrote Winston Churchill in describing his experience in the Second Boer War. But if cheating death does indeed provoke a singular adrenaline rush, the RNC has proven that euphoria to be transferable — suffusing not only the rifle’s target but that person’s supporters, who feel that they, too, metaphorically, are in the crosshairs.
The dedication to Trump around the convention is so intense, some delegates have taken to wearing ear bandages like the one on the candidate’s own ear.
Everywhere around the convention hall, visitors are greeted with the Trump 2024 slogan, the unwieldy “Make America Great Once Again.” Of course, the word “once” is thrown into the original 2016 slogan as an acknowledgment that Trump was, in fact, president for four years; just saying “MAGA” would imply that he failed in his mission. But this Christopher Nolan–style time-bending leads to an odd timeline of when America has been great and when it has fallen short.
For those keeping track:
1776–2008-ish: GREAT
2008–2016 (Obama years): NOT GREAT
2016–2020: GREAT
2020–2024: ONCE AGAIN NOT GREAT
2024–?: GREAT ONCE AGAIN
The real action, though, is happening in the bowels of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Panther Arena, where every GOP pseudo-celebrity and grifter can be seen in the convention’s TV and radio media room. Within a five-minute stroll through what is usually a basketball court, one can see microphones in front of Roger Stone, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Mike Lindell, Lauren Boebert, and America’s most famous (and perhaps only) disbarred coffee salesman, Rudy Giuliani. The media room is basically Republican Twitter if it were to come alive; the ideological bubble provokes young men in suits to walk around the floor bragging that they just scored an exclusive interview with Arizona’s election-denying Senate candidate Kari Lake with the same ebullience as if Taylor Swift had agreed to be on their podcast.
The same goes for the primary arena, Fiserv Forum, where conventioneers can easily weave their way among faces they have seen on television. Vivek Ramaswamy is out on the concourse, glad-handing his fans. Jake Tapper rushes by on the way to his in-arena CNN set. It is a historic moment for people who want to be able to tell their grandchildren they once urinated in the stall next to Asa Hutchinson.
Political conventions always feature celebrities you’d never expect to be there, but this RNC is especially confusing, given Republicans’ willingness to grant career absolution to any famous person who lends their name to the Trump brand. For instance, though accused by numerous women of sexual misconduct, British actor and comedian Russell Brand can be seen walking around the grounds. (Brand was “baptized” in April claiming it was an “opportunity to leave the past behind,” which may be a suboptimal criminal defense.)
But to the Republicans in Milwaukee, any person’s past is forgivable as long as they bend the knee to Trump. That especially goes for Trump’s new running mate, Ohio senator J. D. Vance, who spent most of 2016 treating Trump like a toothbrush that had been dropped in the toilet but who has now embraced the new Trumpian party.
Vance has undergone a Dick Whitman to Don Draper–style transformation, becoming a completely different person overnight and hoping people just get sick of pointing it out. He has never held any position he wasn’t willing to quickly reverse in order to demonstrate fealty to Trump. In the end, it paid off handsomely, as Trump clearly has more affection for people who converted to MAGA than he does for people who were with him all along. It is why a prime speaking slot was given to Nikki Haley, who predictably still endorsed Trump after he called her “birdbrain” and questioned whether she could run for president because her parents were of Indian origin. They all collapse in the end.
But the new GOP has a welcoming spirit. If you’re a face-tattooed OnlyFans model and founder of the “slut walk,” you get a convention speaking slot. If you’re a reality star whose parents are currently serving prison time for fraud and tax evasion, the delegates want to hear from you. If you’re the president of the Teamsters’ Union and want to denigrate capitalism and free markets, the convention will reward you with 20 minutes to speak. If you once called Trump “noxious,” an “idiot,” and “America’s Hitler,” you can even be Trump’s running mate.
So if you have a sketchy past, Republicans are willing to forgive you. It remains to be seen if the party itself deserves absolution.