When she recalls Donald Trump’s arrival Monday at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention is being held this week, Cindy Spray, a school commissioner in Manatee County, Florida, fully relives the emotional charge that accompanied the moment. “You could feel the tears welling up in the room,” said the Republican delegate who was encountered this week in the heart of the security perimeter surrounding this major partisan mass of the presidential campaign. “There was something powerful, something solemn, after what we’ve experienced in the last few days.”
Last Saturday, the populist survived an assassination attempt at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “This is a tragedy that will change the course of events,” she added. “The polls were already very good for him. But they’re going to be even better. Many voters who were hesitant about him are no longer hesitant, and they’re going to support him.”
The 5,000 delegates from all over the United States gathered in Wisconsin are preparing to celebrate in grand style Thursday evening Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican Party in the November presidential election, after having made it official earlier this week. An event with speeches, music and balloons that risks taking on the appearance of a coronation and, above all, a crowning of the former reality TV star.
“This nomination should be secondary to the hero cult,” comments in an interview the specialist in American politics Kathleen Dolan, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. “Since 2016, and his first nomination, the former president has remade the Republican Party in his image. He has made it a tool of his incarnation, the vehicle of his political positions and his desires,” with a now reinforced martyr status.
“He was protected by God,” said Carrie, a Republican activist from Missouri who came to Milwaukee to attend the event, while repeating the esoteric idea that has been circulating in religious and conservative circles since Saturday that an angel came to turn the former president’s head away from the sniper’s bullet. “That’s a powerful sign that the Lord has just sent us.”
“We’re going to stand up for him,” added Julie Grubek, a Republican from Chicago. “He’s been fighting for us for years, and he’s been doing it at great personal risk since Saturday. We have to stay strong and united to get him back in the White House.”
Towards a toned-down discourse?
On Thursday night, Donald Trump is scheduled to speak to a crowd that is already won over and galvanized as much by the nature of the political rally as by the drama that unfolded last week.
“I’m old enough to remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and the failed assassination of Ronald Reagan,” said Jim, a delegate from North Carolina. “Those were historic moments. To see this political violence return to the political landscape makes me furious, and I know it’s not coming from our side, it’s coming from the left and the anarchists who are driving it to get what they want.”
That’s not entirely the opinion of Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, who, at an event held this week by the media Axios on the convention website, said he had spent several hours reading his father’s closing remarks with him in order to “tone down” the potentially riotous language. “I think that’s enough,” he said. “There are things that change you for a few minutes, and there are things that change you permanently. My father will always be a fighter, that will never change, but I think he’s going to do his best to tone down his speeches from now on, to put them where they need to be.”
In an interview at Dutythe former governor of Arkansas and opponent of Donald Trump during the Republican primary, Asa Hutchinson, also welcomed these calls to “soften the pedal on the harsh speeches”. “We need to reduce the threats and the anger,” he stressed. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have said it, and I hope they will continue to do so.”
According to him, the Republicans will come out of the Milwaukee convention even more united, which should allow “Donald Trump to enjoy even stronger support in November, in an election that will be very close.”
Between unity and complacency
On Tuesday, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and staunch opponent of Donald Trump during the primaries Nikki Haley came to bury the hatchet with a speech that was noted and warmly applauded by the crowd. “You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him,” she said. “Our country is at a critical point. We have an important choice to make. If we have four more years of Joe Biden, our country will not recover.”
She was followed on stage by Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, another opponent of Trump at the start of the race, who now came to shout his allegiance to the candidate chosen by Republican voters to represent them in November.
The latest opinion polls conducted by RealClearPolitics still predict a victory for the right-wing candidate with autocratic overtones in five of the six key states — including Wisconsin — that could decide the fate of incumbent President Joe Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump, next November.
“Donald Trump already had an extraordinarily loyal following before the assassination attempt, but this event has just transformed him into an even more heroic figure in the eyes of party delegates,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said in an interview. That status is likely to be felt at his coronation Thursday night, which will not feature any Trump critics.
“His detractors, like (former Vice President) Mike Pence or (former Republican Speaker of Congress) Paul Ryan, were excluded from the convention,” he said. “The only ones who are there are former critical voices who have finally bowed to Trump’s will.” The young senator from Ohio, JD Vance, chosen as the former president’s running mate on Monday, is one of them.
“This approach may well work and secure a victory this year,” Burden continued, “but it also means that there will be little left of the real Republican Party once Trump is gone.”
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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