And yet, their speeches were not filled with policy minutia or indications of tiny quadrennial ideological development that are the normal fare of conventions. They were broad and simple speeches, but delivered with some real emotion and actorly skill. The speeches by soldiers who were at Benghazi, or relatives of those killed by illegal immigrants, were far more emotional and sad than is normal at a convention. They fit with Trump’s pattern of using rallies to let normal people speak. And of course they crackled with life because they expressed the demotic passions of the American right, passions that are no longer constrained by a normal political campaign’s strictly poll-tested messaging apparatus.
The only elected Republican who seemed to pick up on the actual mood of the Trumpified GOP was former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He spoke with convincingly theatrical outrage about Islamist terrorism, and promised, “We’re coming for you.”
Trump is doing everything wrong. He’s filling the convention with his family (and his wife has already been accused of plagiarizing Michelle Obama), with angry victims of crime and disorder, with righteous veterans and cops. His campaign is using strong-arm tactics with the party, and its faces are demanding the imprisonment of the party’s political opponent. It’s angry, hot-headed, and swerving dangerously around the summer’s political corner. The #NeverTrump movement was always going to get creamed by it. And, especially because there are a few casualties along the way, it’s hard to tune away to the programming in which every story is written for a happy ending or tidy resolution.
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