The Nation is not a liberal-tilting magazine. 

It is and has been for a long time the voice of the progressive wing of the Democrat Party. It is not too strong to say that it has been consistent in its hatred, or at least disdain, for Republicans for as long as I have been alive. Multiply that by a thousand when it comes to Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. 

So imagine my surprise when I saw The Nation, of all places, publishing a piece about the convention called "The Revenge of the Normies," which is almost sympathetic to the attendees who have come together to both nominate and celebrate Donald J. Trump. 

Yikes. I am living in an alternate universe where Slate and The Nation are praising the tone of MAGA Republicans and the Secret Service is the Keystone Cops. 

MILWAUKEE—It was just bad luck, I suppose, that the first Republican delegate I ran into here outside the Fiserve Forum was Susan Sweeney. Though her Abe Lincoln stovepipe hat promised a colorful character—and perhaps fodder for a MAGA caricature—Sweeney, a delegate from Chicago’s northern suburbs, told me she had come to the convention “to talk about the things that unite us as Americans, not the things that divide us.”

Every journalist wants color to add to their stories, and it is unsurprising that a writer from The Nation is expecting a flamboyantly attired Republican to harbor dark and divisive thoughts. It's how the left sees us--as an existential threat. 

A Republican talking about uniting and not dividing? Heresy!

Except, that is not what D.D. Guttenplan, who is the Editor of the magazine, found at all. He found normal people--with whom he has significant ideological differences, of course--wanting normality back. 

I arrived in Milwaukee with memories of the last full GOP convention in Cleveland in 2016—which, as my colleague Joan Walsh recently recalled, was a nightmarish spectacle of political cruelty.

Twenty twenty-four feels different. Donald Trump may be the same vicious grifter he’s always been, and the Republican Party, which still had pockets of deep Never Trump resistance in 2016, is now wholly his creature. But the mood here is far from the Nuremberg-style hatefest I’d, frankly, expected.

Remember, he is there a few days after some nutter took a shot at Trump, and the mood is almost jubilant, not angry at all. There is no sense of foreboding, no talk of marching in KKK sheets to massacre liberals. 

Just...normal happy people who want to feel at home in their country. 

Guttenplan was also struck by what he called the "parade of losers"--the candidates who lost to Trump in the primaries--and the tone they struck. 

There is nothing dangerous, or divisive,” Rubio told the television audience, “about putting America first.”

It was as if, in mustering Trump’s former rivals, the party was using them not merely as surrogates but also emissaries from the land of the normal people. Rubio repeatedly brought the crowd to its feet—and in the end he brought Trump to his feet as well, clapping and beaming.

How long will this Norman Rockwell vision of Republican comity last? Who knows. But for tonight, at least, this felt like a party at peace with itself and with its leaders.

This sounds pretty accurate, as was the Slate article I wrote about yesterday. 

So far, this convention has been a triumph for the Republican Party. The tone is good, the speakers excellent, and the messaging spot on. 

And everybody looks happy and engaged, with an exception or two touching on difficult topics. 

It's good to see that this is being noticed. If Slate and The Nation see it, ordinary people watching must be seeing it too.