The Republican Capitulation Is Complete
Donald Trump’s speech capped a GOP convention shaped around one man like never before.
The trickle of Democratic lawmakers publicly calling for change atop their 2024 ticket continues to grow to a stream: Sen. Jon Tester joined the chorus last night, followed by Illinois Rep. Sean Casten this morning.
“Several lawmakers said they expect more members of Congress to call for Biden to drop out—at least two as soon as Friday—if he does not step aside,” Axios reported last night. And Andrew and Sam Stein reported yesterday that a petition beseeching Biden to step aside has begun circulating among some of his own old staffers.
We hope that the catastrophic Cloudstrike update bug that’s hamstringing Windows computers around the world isn’t keeping you from your work or stranding you at the airport this morning—or, worse, getting between you and Morning Shots. Happy Friday.
‘Yes You Are! Yes You Are!’
—Andrew Egger
Donald Trump will drone on forever if you let him; of course, they always let him. His convention-closing acceptance speech last night was the longest ever, breaking the previous record he set in 2016 by more than 15 minutes. The opening minutes, however, were spellbinding.
Speaking quietly and slowly, Trump related a blow-by-blow account of last weekend’s attempt on his life, sounding awestruck by how narrowly he had escaped. He praised the Secret Service agents who had rushed to protect him, commended his rallygoers for not losing their heads and stampeding for the exits, and thanked God for his protection.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Trump said. And the crowd began to chant: “Yes you are! Yes you are!”
It was a striking moment: a party rushing to reassure its rattled-sounding nominee and to chalk up his survival to providential intervention.
It was also a chilling moment. Because Trump was right: He wasn’t supposed to be there. A felonious ex-president whose desperate attempts to cling to power just four years ago nearly sparked a constitutional crisis and provoked a violent insurrection in the halls of the U.S. Capitol shouldn’t have been able to get within a mile of that Milwaukee stage.
Watching the moment, I wondered: How many of the Republican delegates in this very crowd spent January 6, 2021 glued to their phones or TV screens in horror? How many that day felt the scales fall from their eyes as they were forced at last to see what Trump’s apocalyptic election rhetoric had wrought? And what was the laborious path each of them followed to painstakingly reconstruct those scales again? January 6th was horrible, but it wasn’t us—it was a false-flag Antifa operation. January 6th was bad, but it wasn’t us—it was an FBI trap. January 6th wasn’t great, but the left is worse for trying to exploit it. Come on, January 6th wasn’t that bad. The J6ers are patriots: Trump should pardon them and throw the January 6th House Committee in jail instead.
Whatever the path, it led them right here, to a Republican convention that was one long testament to the party’s final, total relinquishment of all control to one man.
“Thursday was the climax of the adoration convention Trump always wanted—and an illustration of how fully he has remade the party he now leads,” Marc Caputo writes for the site this morning. “Gone was any vestige of dissent or ideological disagreement. The social conservatives in the party stayed muted as Trump jettisoned many of their cultural issues. The national security hawks stayed quiet as he picked a vice president who shares his skepticism about the Ukraine war. The old establishment didn’t bother to even show up.”
All that was there in that one orgiastic chant: “Yes you are! Yes you are! Yes you are!”
Tedious Works for Trump (for Now)
—William Kristol
Ninety minutes! Late at night! Donald Trump going on and on! Not my idea of a fun evening.
But it’s not about me—as people say unconvincingly when they’re talking about themselves. It’s about the country. And unfortunately for the country, it wasn’t a bad evening for Trump. He didn’t do himself much damage. He came across as more self-indulgent than scary, more boring than terrifying, more undisciplined than dangerous.
If you’re an upper-middle-class businessman who basically wants to go back to voting Republican, I doubt he scared you away. If you’re a voter who doesn’t pay much attention to politics, Trump’s telling of the assassination attempt was interesting and perhaps even captivating. And you probably turned off the television soon after that. So he might even have won you over.
It won’t go down as a great convention speech. But given that Trump’s ahead in the race and that his campaign is trying to sit on his lead, I imagine Trump world is pretty happy this morning.
You may be thinking, Isn’t there something wrong with our politics if that kind of solipsistic, rambling, and sometimes weird speech doesn’t hurt a candidate for president of the United States? Yes. There is something not right about our politics in the year 2024.
But that’s a longer story. And in the immediate story, for now, after the Republican convention, Trump retains the lead. And the convention suggests his campaign is unlikely to lose that lead through unforced errors.
So Democrats need to force some errors.
Which brings us to Nancy Pelosi, who’s doing her best to persuade Joe Biden to step aside. And Pelosi’s best is awfully good.
The good news is that the odds of Biden stepping aside are a lot better than they were a week ago. It’s even possible that Pelosi’s labors could come to fruition by the end of this weekend.
President Biden said a couple of weeks ago that only the Lord Almighty could persuade him to quit the race. I don’t presume to speak on such matters, but if I did, I’d say that Nancy Pelosi is doing the Lord’s work in helping persuade Biden to step aside for the sake of defeating Trump.
Catching up . . .
Tech outage grounds flights and disrupts businesses around the world: New York Times
Evan Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years in Russian penal colony on charges of espionage: ABC News
Biden’s family starts discussing his exit plan from the 2024 race: NBC News
What Kamala Harris’s record in California tells us about her poltical future: Politico
The RNC’s closing argument: Trump, Trump, Trump: Politico
Quick Hits: American Caesar
We mentioned Marc Caputo’s new dispatch from the ground at the RNC convention above, but it’s worth dwelling on at greater length:
Retired pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan amped up the crowd of “Trumpamaniacs,” called Trump a “gladiator,” and tore off his own tank top—his signature move from his days in the ring. He was followed, in one of the more disjointing pairings, by preacher Franklin Graham. Then came rapper Kid Rock, who repurposed his track “American Bad Ass” in fist-pumping homage to Trump. And mixed martial arts promoter Dana White introduced Trump, hailing his toughness.
Those were the warmup acts.
Trump was the main draw. His acceptance speech was two addresses in one. It started in a subdued and personal fashion with calls for unity and a recounting of his near-assassination at a Butler County, Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.
His delivery stayed subdued as his remarks morphed into more of a typical campaign speech, one that saw him call one opponent “crazy,” repeat lies about the 2020 election, and declare the nation’s capital city a “horrible killing field.”
He repeatedly ignored his teleprompter and let his thoughts flow, delivering an at times disjointed address that dwelled mostly on immigration. He pledged to bring back manufacturing, remove disincentives for gas-powered cars, and lower inflation. The crowd’s energy began to wane as the speech stretched on past what seemed like several natural stopping points—ultimately going on for some ninety minutes.
BUT BY THE END, they cheered as if they wanted more. Many had even come to see Trump in spiritual terms.
Cheap Shots
"Watching the moment, I wondered: How many of the Republican delegates in this very crowd spent January 6, 2021 glued to their phones or TV screens in horror?"
Most of them weren't watching in horror, most of them were watching in the hopes that it would succeed and that Biden's election wouldn't be certified. It was only when the attempt failed that they realized they had to play the ass-covering game and changed their outward rationalizations for why it happened (antifa, peaceful protests, etc.).
Sad that an All-Good, All-knowing, All-powerful God could not manage to save the life of the retired firefighter.