Before Donald Trump’s speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention, pundits promised that everyone was about to see a whole new Trump. Trump was going to be a "more reflective, subdued version of himself." He would be “serene” and “spiritual.” At the same time, Trump would “blow the doors off and rise to the occasion.”
Except ... no. What GOP delegates got was largely Trump's normal stump speech, filled with the same rhetoric of hate for his political opponents, disdain for the United States, and a shout-out to his friend Hannibal Lecter. There had been suggestions that Trump wouldn’t mention Joe Biden. He did. Or that he wouldn’t return to talking about his fondness for authoritarian leaders. He did that, too. From “Crazy Nancy” to “a nation in decline,” much of the speech was exactly what visitors to any Trump rally in the last five years might have expected.
As MSNBC reported, there is never “a new Trump.” It’s just the same old guy. And he never looked older or less enthusiastic about his own material than he did on Thursday night.
For a hot minute there, at the very opening of a speech that would go on to last a geologic age, it seemed like Trump was trying to be something different. Speaking with the same dull, plodding tone as a kid reading a book report that had actually been written by ChatGPT, Trump recounted the attempt on his life that happened less than a week ago. He read haltingly from a list of banalities suggesting that he could be a bridge between political extremes. It’s hard to recall now, so many years after the speech began, but he may have used the word “hope.”
Of course, the hope came with a side order of gore. "There was blood pouring everywhere and yet, in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side," Trump said. "I'm not supposed to be here tonight. I'm not. And I stand before you in this arena by the grace of almighty God."
It’s too bad for the others who were shot at Trump’s rally that he was hogging all the divine grace.
At one point during the speech, a macabre mannequin of the man who had died in the shooting appeared onstage complete with a fire department uniform on which Corey Comperatore's name was misspelled. Trump gave the empty coat a bizarre embrace, then went on to kiss the helmet. It was probably meant to be endearing, but like a lot of the speech, it was simply strange.
Retelling the story of his bloodied ear was about the end of Trump’s pretense at unity. It took only about 10 minutes for Trump to run out of new material and return to the same dark statements and divisive attacks he’s been using since he entered the race in 2015.
Once unity time was over, out came the attack on Nancy Pelosi, Democrats, and Biden. Trump demanded that Biden end the three felony criminal cases pending against him. He spouted a list of statistics about the “greatest invasion in history” and repeated claims that other nations were emptying their prisons and mental institutions into the United States. He said that the next RNC should be held in Venezuela because it would be safer.
He said that 107% of the new jobs under Biden had been taken by illegal aliens.
He promised to end an “EV mandate” that doesn’t exist.
He pulled out his lies about the 2020 election being “stolen.”
He promised “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country,” warned that unspecified “bad things are going to happen,” and declared that Biden had done “unthinkable” damage to the nation.
He even went for a deep cut by calling COVID-19 "the China virus."
The more positive end of Trump’s speech involved whining that he wasn’t getting enough credit for his disastrous term in office. And he went down the list of autocratic leaders who love him, from Hungary’s Victor Orbán to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. “I think he misses me,” said Trump.
Somewhere in all this, Trump got in a “we will not have men playing in women’s sports,” which seems to be a required element in every Republican speech.
Despite having a script and functioning teleprompter, an apparently exhausted Trump frequently wandered into rambling asides. There was a painfully long story about a letter he got from evangelist Franklin Graham that seemed utterly disconnected from what he had been talking about moments earlier. Then Trump seemed to find the script again and just plodded on. After reaching the point where he said “in conclusion,” Trump just kept speaking. And speaking.
If there was any change in Trump’s tone, it was only that he delivered his usual grab bag of half-finished thoughts and 100% lies at a slower pace and in a more disjointed, desultory manner than normal.
That glacial pace is part of how Trump delivered the longest speech in RNC history ... without offering a single new policy, idea, or even slogan. It just went on, and on, and on, and … is it over yet?
Finally, Melania put in her obligatory appearance, carefully dodging Trump’s attempts at a kiss, to stand beside him like the dead-eyed embodiment of the last hateful hour.
Somehow Trump managed to be nasty, weird, and astoundingly boring all at once. It was a performance that should have made Republicans feel their stomachs drop at least as much as Democrats watching Biden's poor debate performance.
It was that bad.
But don’t expect Republicans to admit any of this. Not only did this debacle come after they had already crowned him their nominee, but Republicans have surrendered their whole party to Trump. There’s nothing to it but Trump.
And Trump is an old, hateful, deeply strange man who can’t keep his thoughts straight long enough to just read a script.
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