Donald Trump made a rare call for unity in his address Thursday to the Republican National Convention—before returning to some of the more standard “American Carnage” fare that gets standing ovations among his ecstatic base.
Still wearing a bandage on his right ear, where he was injured in a shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania days earlier, Trump began his remarks by recounting the incident that claimed the life of one of his supporters. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he said, calling his survival a “providential moment.” After his supporters chanted “yes you are,” he responded: “Thank you, but I’m not,” and said that he was now “more determined than ever” to be “president for all of America, not half of America.”
“Our resolve is unbroken and our purpose is unchanged,” he said, in a restrained voice.
But soon, he pivoted to some of his greatest hits, including rants about the “China virus” and Democrats who are “weaponizing the Justice Department” against him and the “illegal immigrant invasion.” He also couldn’t help but attack his opponent, President Joe Biden, whom he suggested he wouldn’t mention by name in the speech. “The damage that he’s done to this country is unthinkable,” Trump said.
The keynote was preceded with fawning remarks by Tucker Carlson, a surreal speech by Hulk Hogan, an insanely obnoxious performance by Kid Rock, as well as introductions by his son, Eric, and Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White.
The mood in the Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, was ostensibly celebratory. But it also tinged with an undercurrent of hostility, as the crowd pumped their fists and chanted, “Fight, fight, fight”—the same words Trump mouthed to his audience as he was escorted from the rally stage Saturday. “Less than four years ago, we were a great nation,” Trump told his faithful. “We will soon be a great nation again.”
The speech capped a week that was equal parts carnival and quasi-religious revival.
For four days, Republicans—some wearing a white bandage on their ear, in solidarity with the former president—strutted around Milwaukee’s Deer District, showing their love of Trump with elaborate outfits, mingling with MAGA celebrities like pillow salesman Mike Lindell, and even mixing it up here and there with the occasional friendly reporter. “I wouldn’t subscribe to Vanity Fair if it was free,” American Conservative Union President Matt Schlapp told me one afternoon, and he wasn’t going to let me spoil his good time. “It might be the best Republican convention ever.”
Here, you could snap a picture behind a mock-up of the Resolute Desk, get a book signed by Marjorie Taylor Greene, and listen to former White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley spin a humorous yarn about the time Trump spritzed him with hairspray after trying to get the former president to focus on the raging pandemic one day instead of tweeting. You could see a service dog in a MAGA hat, hear as much Lee Greenwood as you could handle, or encounter a guy in a shirt advertising his “UNVAXED SPERM.” You could buy Trump-themed mugs, stuffed animals, fine china or apparel that lets people know: I’M VOTING FOR THE CONVICTED FELON. You could even pick up a stately green book of Trump tweets in verse form, called the Collected Poems of Donald J. Trump, sold for $45 by Gregory Woodman and Ian Pratt, who wore “Covfefe” shirts but insisted they were familiar only with Trump’s literary work. “Good art,” Woodman told me, “transcends politics.”
Of course, politics was the actual business this week—and the substance of it all was exceedingly dark, in stark contrast to the festive atmosphere and jocularity among attendees. Even as Republicans spoke of “unity” and decried Democratic rhetoric following the Trump rally shooting, they showed little restraint themselves. “The left wants to groom children,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey claimed of Democrats at a Moms for Liberty event here. “They want to sexualize children. And they want to do it in the name of diversity.” “I can’t explain the level of vitriol in our politics today,” Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson shrugged at the same event. “I can’t get inside the mind of a leftist. It just makes no sense to me. But I know it’s destructive.” Lindell, hawking discount mattress toppers on Real America’s Voice one afternoon outside the Fiserv Forum, cast the election as a “battle of Biblical proportions,” suggesting, as others here did again and again, that Trump survived his assassination attempt thanks to divine intervention. (Thank God, Ted Cruz said in his convention speech, for turning [Trump’s] head on Saturday as that shot was fired.”)
