Until the last part of the last day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the event could not have gone much better for Republicans. Then came Donald Trump’s speech.
“If Fidel Castro were alive today, he would have told Trump that it’s dragging on a bit long.” That was the view from a trenchantly anti-Biden, conservative publication, National Review.
After four days of an expertly choreographed and at times brilliant production—the presence of the Gold Star families on Wednesday was a devastating political hit on Biden—the wheels, as they do with Trump, came off.
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He was the worst part of his own convention.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 18.
Jeenah Moon/ReutersIt wasn’t just the length of the speech. Yes, it was long (at a record-breaking 93 minutes), but it was also rambling, chaotic and, after some perfunctory remarks about uniting the nation, he went on to sow the usual seeds of division and grievance.
Worst of all, he committed the cardinal sin of being boring.
(Also, can we all now put aside the absolute nonsense that was peddled about a new, transformed Trump in the hours after Saturday's shooting? It always looked like disingenuous, political bullshit. Turns out it was.)
Last night was, as many have pointed out, a tale of two speeches—the opening, scripted remarks, and then frequent forays where he veered wildly from the teleprompter into a stream of consciousness.
One’s heart went out to the teleprompter. On center stage, it had prepared all week for its big moment in the spotlight—and then was casually cast aside, ignored and eclipsed by the wayward ego that is Donald Trump.
Maybe expectations were set too high. Trump was touted all week as the headline act that would close the event on a high. He was paraded like a heavyweight boxer about to enter the ring. The knockout would come Thursday.
Only it didn’t. Trump ended up getting in his own way.
The ground had been prepared by his team: Expect New Trump. A changed man. A call to unity. On Monday, the man himself told The Washington Examiner that instead of a planned “humdinger” of a speech, he would rewrite his convention remarks to focus on unity and togetherness.
“He understands there’s a moment,” Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign manager, told an audience in Milwaukee this week, “If there’s one person I know who’s capable of meeting the moment… it’s him.”
Only it wasn’t.
In a piece entitled “Why Did Trump Give Such A Bad Speech,” a writer for The American Conservative noted, “Trump filibustered his own nomination Thursday night.” This was not a unity speech, although unity did get passing attention: “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.”
Even those opening remarks, and the ones recounting his survival from Saturday’s assassination attempt, were delivered in a strange, subdued, low-key tone. As one observer, writing from the convention center for the Atlantic, said, “The details were bracing, but the delivery was oddly labored—as if Trump was speaking in a foreign language that he hadn’t quite mastered.”
Once those remarks were dispatched, Trump veered wildly off course. And therein lies the challenge for campaign co-managers LaCivita and Susan Wiles.
While this has been the most disciplined of campaigns, they are dealing with the most undisciplined of candidates. To date the two veteran Republicans have managed a brilliant campaign: They reined in Trump for the first debate, successfully re-marketed Trump 2.0 after the shooting, and then produced a successful RNC.
Until the closing act. Their biggest asset, it turns out, is also their largest liability.
But, luckily for them, none of this may matter much. How many people, outside of political junkies and hardline Republicans, will have sat through the 93 minutes?
As Jim Geraghty, writing in National Review, put it: “The good news for Republicans is that the best part was at the start, and probably Americans on the east coast turned it off and went to bed, and everywhere else in the country, when they got bored, they tuned it out.”
The digital campaign team will have been splicing 20 or 30 second edits for consumption by normal people on social media. There may just be enough “moments” for them to get four or five of them.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 18.
Mike Segar/ReutersAnd, despite his stumbles on closing night, the RNC remained a totemic victory for Trump and his remaking of the Republican party. Molly Ball, writing in the Wall Street Journal, was correct in describing the transformation witnessed in Republican politics this week.
“This new GOP has a new philosophy. The convention lineup testified to the obsolescence of the country-club Republican Party. Monday night featured speeches from Amber Rose, a biracial face-tattooed adult-content creator and rapper; David Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who said Biden ‘provoked’—yes, provoked—the Russians to invade Ukraine with talk of NATO expansion; and Teamsters head Sean O’Brien, who decried greedy corporations and the Chamber of Commerce.”
But perhaps the greatest takeaway from last night, while watching a seriously underwhelming Trump, was the realization that (lost a little in the haze of the last three weeks since Biden's disastrous debate) this should, and could, be a close election. As former George W. Bush speechwriter and avowed “Never Trumper,” David Frum, said after watching Trump's speech, “This Crew is Totally Beatable.”
But beatable by Biden?
As elections analyst David Wasserman posted on X during the speech, “Someone is going to have to win the 2024 election despite their best efforts not to.”
But the very best tweet of the night? Kudos to Philip Klein who had to sit through it for National Review and posted, “I could have been halfway through Barry Lyndon by now.”
Only halfway?
