Once again, all three of us on board today. Look for another audio item over the weekend (paid subscribers only), and…well, we’ll see what the news brings — Jonathan
[Starting with Julia’s in-person report:]
I was able to get a media pass and get in the convention hall tonight, and I’m glad I did, because I don’t think I would really believe that speech if I just read about it. I knew Trump would talk about himself a lot, because everyone else at the convention has, and about the shooting a lot. The pivot from “we need to turn down the temperature of the rhetoric” to “God intervened to save Trump” has been swift, at least in RNC-land.
But what followed was… what? I’m not much of one for theater criticism of political speeches, unpopular a choice though that may be in recent weeks. And as David points out, Trump has just suffered a traumatic event. I wouldn’t want to give a speech under those circumstances. No question. But Trump did, moving from topic to topic, sometimes without pausing. His delivery was monotone, and even the energy lines weren’t energetic. The crowd went wild for the “drill baby drill” line I think because they were looking for something to rev them up. People were nodding off in the alternates section next to me. I have been to statistics lectures with more verve.
The convention speech is for the people in the hall, but part of the idea is to pivot to the general election. Much of the convention has been dedicated to talking about Trump as a person – a father and grandfather, seemingly aimed at character issues and the recent felony convictions in New York. A reintroduction of sorts. But the speech might have made that job harder, because it was just so difficult to follow and there was so little there for a national audience.
One of my ideas about Trump as a party leader is that he leads by dilemma: he constantly puts other Republicans in the position of defending things they would rather not, which exerts power over them while also exhausting skeptical allies and thinning the ranks. A convention speech is pretty minor, but it might present one more such dilemma.
[Here’s David:]
Having done some journalism that involved speaking with many victims of gun violence and experts on gun victimization, I tend to think that it’s a very bad idea for anybody to return to work less than a week after suffering a highly traumatic violent gun assault. Perhaps ease back in; certainly avoid the most high-pressure tasks—particularly in situations that might carry similarities to the events surrounding the attack.
I’m not saying that this is what triggered Donald Trump’s odd reversion into rally-speak mode on stage Thursday night in Milwaukee. I certainly can’t untangle the thickets of his subconscious. I’m just saying—and have been privately grumbling all week—that somebody should have somehow put a stop to this. It’s not super-manly and tough and lion-hearted to pump your fist and charge forward with life-as-usual right after getting shot in the head. It’s reckless and unhealthy.
But here we were. Trump clearly intended to deliver a different kind of speech than he did. He and his campaign are (understandably) very confident with their position, and wanted to do nothing on national TV to jeopardize that. It was widely reported that, after the assassination attempt, Trump himself decided his convention speech should be softer, more unifying, less insulting. The speech as written reflects that.
But he couldn’t do it. He got through the (overly long) opening section, in which he publicly relived his literal near-death experience of five days earlier (again, not recommended), but even during that part he began to take on the distinctive flat, rhythmic, inflection-free tone and cadence of his rally teleprompter reading. He reads like an actor scanning lines to prompt himself about the next monologue; when he recognizes his cue, he almost literally cuts himself off to launch into the appropriate riff.
Those riffs—which in many cases he was doing almost word-for-word from what I’ve watched in his recent rallies (always televised and streamed in the right-wing marketplace)—are for the benefit and reaction of the audience in front of him. I think in the convention hall, following his somber opening segment, his written speech was unable to rejuvenate that crowd, and he instinctively switched into rally mode to get them going. He seemed, to me, to become almost entirely unaware of the televised audience. He was entirely focused on getting the people in front of him to hoot and laugh and roar.
And he knows which bits do that, like a veteran stand-up comedian does. And it’s the material that he wasn’t going to do on national TV: crazy Nancy Pelosi; countries emptying their insane asylums to send Hannibal Lecters across America’s borders; Democrats using COVID to cheat in the 2020 election; the “China virus”; weaponizing the justice system. And always, presenting himself and his followers as victims of cruel and evil Democrats.
Whatever led to it, the speech was a troubling performance to watch. And definitely not what the campaign intended.
[And here’s Jonathan:]
Beyond agreeing with everything my colleagues said, my quick take reaction to Trump’s convention speech is pretty much the same reaction I always have to him. Outside of that he’s running as an authoritarian, outside of his crimes and his history of sexual assault, outside of that he doesn’t believe in the rule of law, and outside of the other ways that he’s massively unsuited for the presidency: This guy also knows nothing about government and policy.
Now, George W. Bush was massively underqualified when he became president, and it was harmful to his presidency and to the nation. But W. wasn’t a stupid guy, and he really did improve over the course of eight years. Trump if anything goes backwards. Bush treated setbacks as setbacks and tried to learn from them; Trump treats everything he does as a massive victory, ignores any evidence to the contrary, and just bulls (and bullies) his way ahead, never learning from anything.
At any rate, it takes some real initiative to botch a convention acceptance speech, and Trump has now done it three times, with the third time being the worst.