Things could have been so different in Milwaukee. But on the opening night of the convention, the GOP is feeling lucky and confident.
The Republican National Convention of 2024 is tens of thousands of people in a basketball arena unable to stop thinking about what might have been. Had Donald J. Trump taken half a step backward, had the sniper at a Pennsylvania rally who tried to shoot him just two days ago been just a millimeter more accurate — the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee would have been a mass funeral. In that alternative reality, the delegates gathered here would have been forced to somehow figure out their next nominee amid a blood-soaked revenge fantasy.
But the bullet did miss, and instead Donald Trump arrived at the convention Monday night wearing a bandage on his right ear and sitting atop a party as confident in its electoral prospects as it has been at any moment in decades. The GOP heads into November knowing it is likely to flip two Senate seats and retake the majority, knowing it has a friendly House map (gerrymandered to its advantage in many places) and a presidential candidate whom polls showed with an advantage even before Joe Biden imploded on the debate stage two weeks ago (never mind the lingering mystery of exactly who Trump will face off against in November).
Even Monday morning, Republican operatives doubted that Trump would choose J.D. Vance as his running mate. Marco Rubio would help with the Hispanic vote, Doug Burgum would reassure nervous Wall Street types, a woman would help with moms in the suburbs, Ben Carson would increase the margins among African American men. Vance is a younger, even more MAGA-fied version of Donald Trump than Donald Trump is. He helps with almost nothing. But this isn’t a party that thinks Donald Trump needs any help.
“We are as unified as we have been,” said Mike Lawler, an upstate New York congressman who in his first year in office has become a regular presence on cable news calling out the excesses of some elements of his party.
The sentiment was visible everywhere, from the appearance of Mitch McConnell and wife Elaine Chao on the plaza in front of the convention, smiling gamely as an Orthodox Jewish convention delegate kept telling them he wanted to buy them a beer, to Kevin McCarthy, drummed out of the party less than a year ago and now holding court and greeting well-wishers in front of the Fox News booth (at least until Laura Loomer arrived with her cell-phone video camera on and he hightailed it back inside — “You frightened him away!” a disappointed delegate lamented). Nikki Haley, the Trump Cabinet member turned bitter foe, was even scheduled to make an appearance at the convention after a year spent calling him unfit for office.
“It was that photo of him, his face bloodied, waving his fist in front of the American flag,” said Darrin Baker, a delegate from Arizona. “It was like the photo from Iwo Jima.”
He was drinking a beer at the Drinking Wisconsinbly bar across the plaza from the convention. “It just seems like Donald Trump can’t be stopped.”
We now appear to be both firmly in the Donald Trump era of American politics — and also there just barely. It’s not only that Trump survived the shooting but that he seems to keep surviving what appear to be mortal challenges to his political project — impeachments, criminal cases, bankruptcies, lawsuits. Just this month, the Supreme Court imposed strict limits on the potential prosecution of any president. Just this day, a federal judge in Florida threw out his classified-documents case.
“We are going to see a new Donald Trump on the streets after what happened Saturday,” said Mike Lindell, the MyPillow entrepreneur turned election denialist. He stationed himself in the middle of the concourse at the convention, fielding reporters’ questions, trying to turn every inquiry into a reason why the nation should rid itself of electronic voting machines.
“He’s always been a great uniter because people know what he’s done, as he keeps getting more and more people … coming into that bucket,” Lindell said, ignoring the poster behind him that featured quotes from Donald Trump including “I am your retribution” and “They aren’t coming after me. They are coming after you. I am just in the way.”
“I go into inner cities all the time, and even the Democrats, liberals, conservatives … they all come up to me and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ You know, whenever you say we have a big political divide, that’s just what the media wants us to believe. And that’s what some of the parties want you to believe. America is going to all be getting together as a people, and we are going to get rid of those electronic voting machines.”
Kevin Cramer, the North Dakota senator, held court nearby, standing between the men’s room and the Fox News headquarters. The election was still four months away, he cautioned, but this was a triumphant moment for his party, even if Cramer last year had urged primary voters to turn away from Donald Trump, telling Meet the Press that the party was in “desperate need” of new leadership.
“He not only dodged the bullet but then turned that bullet right around on people who don’t have the same level of firmness the rest of us do,” he said. “And illustrating through that experience what the projection of power and what a warrior president really looks like in the face of life and death danger. And I think it’s a differentiating factor between him and President Biden.”
As he spoke, Alaska senator Dan Sullivan came up to him and shouted, “I am really happy about J.D. Vance, but I was mad when I heard it wasn’t going to be Kevin Cramer!”
Sullivan then invited his colleague to a drinks event the Alaska delegation was throwing before running off to a TV hit.
Cramer shrugged. “Well, that was weird.”
