The Republican National Convention was as notable for what went unspoken as the narrative that was unspooled about a former president who survived an apparent assassination attempt and criminal prosecutions in the days ahead of the event.
The RNC sought to normalize Donald Trump and skip over his extremist agenda and coup attempt, wrote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd — and instead highlighted his supposed softer side with humanizing tales about his grandchildren and graphic accounts of his recent brush with death.
"Trump is a master of narrative," Dowd wrote. "Not always true narrative, and not always rational narrative. But the man knows dramatic narrative."
"The former president lived through one of the most harrowing episodes in American history, and, thank God, survived it," she added. "And for his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, he recounted it — to maximum primal and dark effect — before a spellbound audience in a subdued tone with a messianic vibe, as Melania, in a bright red suit, and other family members looked on from a V.I.P. box."
Dowd has covered the celebrity businessman-turned-perennial candidate since 1987 but found that his near-death experience had not changed him, although the convention positioned him for a new role to play.
"He played the Roman emperor, like a Julius Caesar who survived that 'foul deed' and 'bleeding piece of earth,' fist in the air, sitting high in the forum, gloating, as his vanquished foes bent the knee," Dowd wrote. "Caesar had a cult of personality as well, the epitome of the strongman authoritarian politician. That Caesar was martyred. But before that he had already eroded republican rule and was on his way to emperor."
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Dowd watched with alarm and disgust as the "MAGA congregation" in Milwaukee held up Trump – "a man who delighted in breaking all Ten Commandments," she wrote – for beatification, and she tipped her cap at the former president's political operation for sweeping his character flaws and political liabilities under the rug, for at least a week.
"When I covered Trump’s first campaign, it was Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski, Michael Cohen, a few young men at computers and a lot of pictures of Trump on a floor beneath him at Trump Tower," Dowd wrote. "Now he has the wise Susie Wiles and the cutting Chris LaCivita, famous for devising the 'Swift Boat' strategy that smeared John Kerry, a war hero, as a war liar."
"With Trump, LaCivita is doing the reverse: exfoliating the former president’s criminality and autocratic schemes, including a Truth Social post about terminating the Constitution," she added.
"I heard no prime-time mention at the convention of the rioters on Jan. 6, dubbed 'patriots' by Trump; the day of infamy was wiped out, Lenin-style."
