The GOP appears keen to paper over any differences and double down on their support for Trump.
The Republican National Convention has just kicked off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The four-day event will be attended by around 50,000 Republicans including 2,400 delegates who are expected to confirm Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for November’s presidential election.
The attempted assassination of the former president in Pennsylvania on Saturday has changed the tone of the convention for some, but not all.
Trump has said he will tone down the vitriol in his rhetoric that has been a common feature of his campaign so far. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, he promised that in his speech to the convention, due to be delivered on Thursday, would be rewritten.
“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” he said. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”
Trump also suggested that he would be speaking to those outside the convention as much as the faithful audience within.
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been,” he added, as he boarded his plane for Milwaukee.
It’s not the first time that Trump has called for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt. On Sunday morning, he posted on the Truth Social network that it was “in this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United”.
The announced change in rhetoric has been a welcome one for many Republicans, including the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, who called for calm. In an interview with CBS News, Johnson said the US needed to “turn the rhetoric down, we’ve got turn the temperature down in this country” and called on leaders of all parties to do so.
The Republican senator for Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, told Bloomberg television that political figures had been responsible for the divisions in American society and that he would “like to be able to tone down the rhetoric” so that the nation could deal with the challenges the nation faces.
Not all Republicans share those views. Some have pointed to the Democrats’ contention that Trump is a threat to democracy as a motivating factor for the assassination attempt.
Senator J.D. Vance, a freshman Senator from Ohio seen by many as a potential vice presidential candidate to share the ticket with Trump, was not so forgiving. He stated that the Biden’s accusations have “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination”.
Republican congressman Mike Collins shared Vance’s view, posting on X just hours after the shooting that “Joe Biden sent the orders,” referencing Biden’s comment that it was “time to put Trump in the bullseye”.
Ten minutes later, Collins called for the Republican district attorney in Butler County, Pennsylvania, to “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination”.
Despite Trump’s difference in opinion to some of his base, he’s unlikely to face much difficulty in presenting a united Republican Party, even though political commentators in the US expect the convention to be fiery and full of anger.
But Trump’s brush with death on Saturday is likely to remove any internal dissent against his position as the party leader.
Nikki Haley, his most successful opponent in the primary contests, was originally not expected to attend the convention. But after the events in Pennsylvania, Haley confirmed that she will not just attend, but speak at the convention.
This is significant. For many moderates, Haley remained the focus of any potential Republican opposition to Trump. Despite officially dropping out of the race to be the Republican nominee in March, she continued to gain votes in the primaries, including more than 150,000 votes in Pennsylvania.
There is also unlikely to be any opposition of the Trump campaign’s rewriting of the party’s stance on abortion. In response to Trump’s position that abortion legislation should be a state and not a federal issue, the Trump team has softened the language and has cut short on calling for a national abortion ban.
The campaign team’s decision was confirmed as the Republican Party’s platform by the Republican National Committee last week. In a move away from tradition, the decision was made behind closed doors and with no press access.
Religious conservatives immediately expressed their opposition to the decision. Chad Connelly, a former chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, stated that he had been contacted by more than 1,000 individuals who were disappointed with the decision. “The words I am hearing are shocked, betrayed, trampled, depressed, deflated,” he said.
While he said that most of those who contacted him “will still probably vote for Trump,” he argued that this disagreement “hurts the energy needed for those folks to do the things it takes to help elect a president”.
But that much of that opposition appears to have relented in light of Saturday’s shooting. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council told Associated Press: “More divisiveness would not be healthy.”
It’s unlikely that Trump will be able to stifle all of the delegates’ anger over this decision. But there’s no doubt that he will retain their support and this week’s convention will undoubtedly be Trump’s coronation.
However, the November election is still a long way off and it is far too early to categorically state that the attempted assassination has cemented his return to the White House.
Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
