The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
At Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee, Donald Trump delivered a speech accepting the nomination to become the Republican candidate for president. But much like the convention itself, what began in a profound moment with calls for national unity in the wake of tragedy devolved into the same old MAGA, the same old Trump.
Delivering his third consecutive nomination speech at a Republican National convention, the former president delivered the longest speech in modern political convention history, clocking in at more than 90 minutes.
In a sense, the speech encapsulated the week that was at the RNC in downtown Milwaukee. It began with a powerful moment of somber reflection on what was genuinely a tragedy, the former president surviving an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where a man was killed and others were injured during the shooting. There were calls to unite as a nation, a sort of rally-around-the-flag type of message. All week, people pointed ahead to this speech and considered what Trump might say, how this experience may have changed him, or at the very least colored his approach to this speech. But eventually, the speech — like the convention itself —
For the first part of the former president’s speech, that was indeed a strong and powerful message — resilience, strength, coming together in the wake of tragedy. As soon as he began to describe the details of his near-death experience less than a week ago, the crowd was captivated.
I watched this speech from the convention floor at Fiserv Forum, and in moments it felt like you could hear a pin drop in that room. People were absolutely locked in on what he had to say. He expressed “gratitude to the American people,” talked about what drove him to rise with his fist in the air after being shot in the ear, and gave thanks to God.
“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he said at one point, to which many in the crowd began shouting, “yes, you are!” which turned into a chant of its own. The Republican Party is Trump’s party now and that room was behind him 1000%.
Then things took a turn. And then another turn, and another, and it turns out Trump is still Trump. As soon as he moved on from discussing what happened at the rally on Saturday, the speech veered off the rails into typical Trump territory, from the relentless demonization of immigrants and talk of an “invasion” to the random riffing about his celebrity guests (Dana White, Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, etc.) to completely baffling non sequiturs about everything and nothing. This extended rambling portion of his remarks did not seem to have anything to do with anything and certainly didn’t feel like it belonged in a speech given at a moment of such magnitude.
On the convention floor, the once-captivated audience began to lose its focus, many of those standing took their seats, and people began milling about once again, growing increasingly restless as the speech wore on into its second hour. It seemed like those balloons that have been pinned up to the rafters were never going to fall. When the speech did finally arrive at its conclusion, it didn’t crest to a triumphant close, but sputtered to the finish line.
Trump’s speech retreating to tired right-wing narratives and all kinds of MAGA strangeness was a reminder that despite the GOP being unified around its candidate, this party and this candidate are eminently beatable in this presidential election. It’s a party with big-tent ambitions but is as insular as ever, with all the lies and grievance politics and fearmongering and instances of frightening extremism that became a hallmark of his presidency. Democrats are in a real mess of their own, one that doesn’t look likely to come to a clean conclusion at the moment.
But as we saw this week, moments can pass. This version of the Republican Party just can’t help itself. Trump’s speech tonight began with him spiking the football, saying, “Four months from now, we will have an incredible victory.” And while Republican victory remains the most likely outcome this November, as this speech and as this convention wore on, it was a reminder that this candidate and this “movement” are wildly out of step with the majority of Americans, and returning to this disastrous president would be more than just a step in the wrong direction.
This cannot and should not be our great nation’s future.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 18 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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Nutcases divide us. Thanks for your analysis.