Donald Trump’s campaign chiefs designed the convention opening this week to feature a softer and more optimistic message, focusing on themes that would help a divisive leader expand his appeal among moderate voters and people of colour.
Then came a shooting that rattled the foundation of American politics.
Suddenly, the Democrats’ turmoil after the debate, the GOP’s potential governing agenda and even Trump’s criminal convictions became secondary to fears about political violence and the country’s stability. The presumptive Republican nominee and his allies will face the nation during their four-day convention in Milwaukee unquestionably united and ready to “fight”, as the bloodied Trump cried out Saturday while Secret Service agents at his Pennsylvania rally rushed him to safety.
Anger and anxiety are coursing through the party, even as many top Republicans call for calm and a lowering of tensions.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, known for his sunny and optimistic vision of Republican politics, suggested online the attempted assassination had been “aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse”.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, another likely convention speaker, offered a more somber tone during a Sunday appearance on NBC.
“We’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country,” Johnson said. “We need leaders of all parties, on both sides, to call that out and make sure that happens so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have.”
There are no changes yet to the convention programme
In an interview on Sunday, Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley said the convention’s programming wouldn’t be changed after the shooting. The agenda, he said, will feature more than 100 speakers overwhelmingly focused on kitchen table issues and Trump’s plans to lift everyday working Americans.
“We have to be able to lay out a vision for where we
want to take this country,” he said.
Whatley said the central message would have little to do with President Joe Biden’s political struggles, Trump’s grievances about the 2020 election or the ex-president’s promises to exact retribution against political enemies.
“We are going to have the convention that we have been planning for the last 18 months,” he said. “We are a combination of relieved and grateful that the president is going to be here and is going to accept the nomination.”
Beyond voting to formally give Trump the nomination, elected delegates from across the nation will update the GOP’s policy platform for the first time since 2016. The scaled-down platform proposal — just 16 pages with limited specifics on key issues, including abortion — reflects a desire by the Trump campaign to avoid giving Democrats more material on a key campaign issue.
The platform approved by a committee last week doesn’t include an explicit call for a national abortion ban, two years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a federally guaranteed right to abortion.
Many anti-abortion advocates strongly opposed the Trump campaign’s rewriting of the platform. But after the shooting, at least one major religious conservative said he wouldn’t press to reverse the committee’s decision.
“More divisiveness would not be healthy,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump will use the convention to unveil his choice for vice president, which could come as soon as Monday. Some Republicans believe the pick will take on more importance than it would have otherwise given the new threats to Trump’s life.
His top three contenders are North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, all expected to speak this week.
Despite a contentious primary season, any lingering tensions appear to have been set aside.
Former rivals Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, are expected to speak at the convention on Trump’s behalf.
Veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the shooting ensured the GOP is united and motivated behind Trump, a dynamic he said will be on display all week in Wisconsin.
“Every single Trump supporter will now be a Trump voter,” Luntz said. “The average Trump voter is so angry at what just happened. They were angry before this, and now they’re furious.”