“I know tough guys, but let me tell you, bro, Donald Trump is the toughest of them all.” This is not the thoughtful analysis of a Harvard analyst, but the visceral cry of Hulk Hogan, the legend of wrestling, in the middle of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. It did, however, condense the conclusion of this kind of congress of American conservatives: the strength of their candidate, the former president and tycoon, proclaimed as a candidate for the White House in the elections of November 5 with renewed vigor.
If all the polls, for two long years, had already given him the victory, with between three and four points more than the Democratic candidate (Joe Biden, at the time of going to press), now Trump has consolidated himself, especially in the eyes of his coreligionists, after suffering an assassination attempt last Saturday in Butler (Pennsylvania). The convention has served to enthrone, crown, place the scepter in the hands of a 78-year-old man whom the entire world has seen bleed and rise, raise his fist and ask his people: “Fight.”
There were many doubts about the behavior of Trump and his team and his party in the face of a life-changing event. But they were cleared up on Thursday with the candidate’s speech – 90 minutes long, the longest in a nomination – in which Trump was Trump again. For just 15 minutes, he intoned a kind of transformation: in a very heartfelt way, he recounted how he lived through the attack, a story that he will not verbalize anymore because it hurts him too much. But after that time, he was back to his usual self, marking the speech to come: accusations against the Democrats, garbage, a fan, lies –CNN counted more than 20– and insults.
Trump presented himself as a chosen one of glory, or rather, of the heavens. He said he was “saved by the grace of almighty God” and convinced that he had him on his side while he crouched, with his ear bleeding, waiting for the security services to announce that the threat had passed. He used a low, unfamiliar tone to explain all this. And he did not accuse his rival party, which was one of the unknowns, of what happened, after only members of his family and even the senator for Ohio JD Vance, whom he has chosen as a candidate for vice president on his ticket, had done so. Trump did not do so, the man who has governed from personal resentment and constant accusations, for everything, to the Democrats.
The billionaire launched a wish for unity, setting himself up as a messianic figure – the protected one, the chosen one – to explain that this only happens through him. The rest is chaos. He says New York Times If you closed your eyes, his words sounded like the first Barack Obama who promised hope and healing. “The discord and division in our society must be healed, we must heal them quickly,” he said. He spoke of “a single, shared destiny.” “Either we rise together or we fall apart,” said the man who says he wants to be “the president of all,” not of half the country, who will reach out “with loyalty and friendship” to those voters who support him now and did not do so four years ago.
But his fall from his horse was short-lived. After the anguish, close to tears when he kissed the firefighter’s gear of the man who died in his shooting, Corey Comperatore, Trump was back to his old self. Discipline and softness were out of the question. He presented the supposed “final battle” for the United States again, made threats, made personal attacks – he called the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, “crazy” -, promised draconian measures against immigration – quoting Hannibal Lecter, little more to say -, tax cuts and new trade wars. Even “small drilling” to lower energy prices. “He talked like a bus driver,” she describes him. POLITICO.
Donald Trump and JD Vance, the two Republican candidates, together at the convention.
He was no longer a man subdued by a formidable vital setback, but rather the defiant contender for the Oval Office who thrives on adversity and entrenches himself in a position that has given him very good results. A meandering position, a roller coaster of political betting, where calls for unity already sounded like cardboard. He only needed to mention Biden and his crisis once. His survival and his usual bets triumphed over his calls for violence that ended in the assault on the Capitol on Three Kings’ Day 2021, before which part of the voters seem amnesiac. “I am the one who saves democracy for the people of our country,” he said without blushing. Nor did he say a word about him being the first convicted criminal to try to preside over the country.
In the stands, there was only support, balloons, confetti, ears bandaged in homage to the hero. The press speaks of “Trump’s amnesia” to refer to the dangerous phenomenon of forgetting what he did in his term and how he left the White House, amid allegations of fraud that he still defends today, but no one knows what power he will have to win new votes. His base, as we saw, is very mobilized, and now he can win the solidarity of some more, but it is not that he is going after them either. That is why he does not change his speech, because the bully speech already worked for him. Enough.
Super Grandpa
Even so, at the convention it was clear that the former president’s communication strategy has tried to humanize him. Beyond the current of empathy generated by a brutal attack like the one suffered by Trump and the (rapid, poorly supported) call for unity, a staging has been sought that sells him as a survivor, a strong guy who pulls himself together, vulnerable (something he would have previously dismissed in a stroke of the pen) but firm at the same time, a compassionate and grateful leader. He has even dressed up as a devoted grandfather, with his whole family supporting him and the little ones telling things that until now they had never mentioned: that Trump spoils them with candy and soda, that he gives them goodnight kisses, that he is the most fun to play golf.
Whether or not he has found a new meaning to his life, we do not know. Externalizing it does not make him external. He seeks what he always does: power. Humility and serenity were exchanged for his well-known commitment to personal aggrandizement. A whole world between the beginning and the end of the speech.
Columnist Maureen Dowd, now at the NOW and who has closely followed Trump’s career since 1987, has written a chronicle of the convention which has gone viral due to its forcefulnessin which he asks whether we are dealing with a lion or a liar (he uses the wordplay lion – lyin’). He explains that Trump is a “master of narrative”, with many years of television behind him, who left the participants “bewitched” and who rides on a “surreal streak of luck”: he has saved his life, the judicial decisions are benevolent to him, Biden is sinking. And instead of assuming the assassination attempt as an ideal event to really change, “he played the role of the Roman emperor.” He says that he is like a Julius Caesar who escapes from an assassination and continues to destroy republicanism and advance the empire. This is how he sees Trump, “a liar and chronic criminal” who is “playing Caesar.”
Beyond Trump, there is the Republican Party. The classic structures and right-wing leadership have disappeared in these years of Trump’s dominance, since 2016. Those who did not want to put up with him have withdrawn, have been defeated or have finally been assimilated. There are no dissenting voices possible.
“The notion of destiny confers inevitability on Trump’s rise. It was never inevitable. His incredible rise was made possible by a hardening culture, rife with social media malice, and the decline of our society and our courts. Plus, it’s easier to rise if you’re unscrupulous and lie. That’s not part of a hero’s journey,” Dowd writes.
Trump is hurt, but he doesn’t even talk seriously about unity and peace, he just adds fuel to the fire. This is expected to be the tone of his campaign, whoever he faces. Direct, aggressive, securing votes in his base, without building bridges, convinced of his victory. And so, until November.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
