Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination before a raucous audience of thousands on Thursday, and kicked off his convention remarks with a theme at odds with his typical stump speech: unity.
“The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny,” Trump said from the stage in Milwaukee. “We rise together. Or we fall apart.”
“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said.
For most politicians, such rhetoric would be standard – even trite. For Donald Trump, it represented a remarkable tonal shift and capped four days of an intense image makeover by the party.
The shift did not last long, however. Trump quickly reverted to his more standard fare, painting a dark portrait of America that did not always reflect reality where crime, drugs and illegal migration are devastating communities.
“Under the current administration, we are a nation in decline,” he said. “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness and chaos will be over.”
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE
Donald Trump spoke for approximately 14 minutes about his harrowing experience in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a would-be assassin missed delivering a deadly blow by a quarter of an inch because Trump turned his head.
With a white bandage still on his ear and large images of his bloodied face looming on screens behind him, Trump described his survival in religious terms, telling the audience he was only alive due to “the grace of Almighty God.”
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said.
The crowd chanted back: “Yes, you are!”
Trump’s account fit with a recurring theme of the convention, with speaker after speaker reinforcing the messianic undertones of his populist presidential campaign.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Donald Trump made a point of referring to Biden by name just once during his speech and made no direct reference to Vice President Kamala Harris. That was a contrast to a typical Trump rally, where he invokes his Democratic rival’s name liberally to blame him for violent crime and other ills.
The reluctance to use their names underscored the degree to which the U.S. presidential race is now in flux. Trump campaign advisers are unsure whether he will face the 81-year-old Biden, Harris or another candidate at the top of the Democratic Party ticket as Biden faces increasing pressure from within his party to drop out.
This week in Milwaukee, Trump campaign advisers and allies have been telling reporters they are not worried about facing Harris because they can simply tie her to Biden’s record on the southern border. They believe they can also paint her, and any of the other candidates being suggested as alternatives, as to the left of him on various policies.
But the Trump campaign may soon have to confront the challenge of recalibrating its message for a younger candidate who is harder to target than Biden.
In a recent survey of swing state voters conducted by Emerson College Polling, 53.7% of respondents said they would vote for a younger Democrat over Trump, who is 78.
MARATHON SPEECH
Trump’s speech was long – record-breaking in fact.
Coming in at around an hour and a half, the address was the longest convention speech in history. Trump already held the record from the 2016 convention, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Some delegates on the convention hall floor appeared to stare at their phones during the speech’s latter stages, a relatively rare occurrence at Trump events, during which fervent supporters tend to stand at rapt attention.
FAMILY MATTERS
Melania Trump, who has largely been absent from Trump’s 2024 campaign, made a rare appearance in support of her husband on Thursday night.
She entered the arena to warm applause and waved to the crowd before taking a seat. Unlike at the Republican conventions in 2016 and 2020, she did not give a speech.
The former first lady was joined in the family box by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who also have stayed away from the trail in contrast with previous campaigns.
The display of family harmony underscored an effort by the party this week to portray its nominee as a caring family man and selfless public servant who has been unfairly maligned by Democratic opponents who warn he could become a dictator if re-elected. Trump’s teenage granddaughter, Kai Trump, spoke on Wednesday night, and a grandchild sat on his knee as he listened to a parade of speakers praising him on Thursday.
The efforts to show a softer side of Trump were likely aimed at trying to repair the damage done to his image by his conviction in a hush money trial in New York, where allegations of his affair with a porn star resurfaced and were the fodder of daily news reports.
