Defying precedent and expectations, this year’s four-night Republican National Convention has not led to a polling numbers bump for Donald Trump, according to a ABC News/Ipsos poll. Some features of his acceptance speech, though, merit a look irrespective of this.
One was the absence of any visible qualms in Trump for turning the White House into a backdrop for the convention’s final night, with large “Trump-Pence” billboards erected on either side of him as he spoke for 70 minutes from a landing on the mansion’s steps.
Often spoken of as “The People’s House”, the presidential mansion has been a sacrosanct image for Americans for two centuries. Cheapening it into an electoral prop was no problem for Trump, who loves to be seen as a disrupter of norms and traditions.
The convention’s audacity was striking in other ways too. In particular, perhaps, for pitching simultaneously for the Black vote and the law-and-order vote.
One by one, Trump’s African-American backers praised what they claimed he has done for their race. In between, men like Rudi Giuliani, the former mayor of New York city and the chief perhaps of Trump’s team of personal lawyers, spoke with passion of the fires of lawlessness that he alleged Black Lives Matter and its allies have lit in the US’s inner cities.
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Desperate to win back the White suburban women he seems to have lost, Trump warned Americans of “the danger to their safety” from the Democratic Party and its supporters. He sounded equally anxious to win just enough Black votes in battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to garner an electoral college lead over Joe Biden.
For the latter purpose, Trump underscored, at the convention, his administration’s funding for historically Black universities and a piece of legislation (long urged by the Democratic Party) that enables a shortening of the incarceration of offenders sentenced for non-violent crimes.
Yet Trump has also been saying frankly (though not at the convention) that he welcomes and appreciates the support extended by far-right groups like QAnon, which spreads weird stories about the wickedness of his Democratic opponents.
“China”, a hostile sound that Trump hopes will drive Americans to his tent, was uttered loudly and repeatedly at the convention, and not only in relation to COVID-19. “China will own Biden!” he warned from the White House steps.
Less expected, though not surprising, was Trump’s denunciation of the US’s involvement in wars beyond its shores. Previous presidents, Republican and Democrat, were held responsible for the huge price America has paid for these “foreign wars”.
Trump’s US is nationalist – he is for “America First!”. It is also ethno-nationalist – preservation of White dominance is the well-understood (and occasionally articulated) centre-piece of the Trumpian agenda. And it is populist and isolationist, making the US a far cry from what was envisioned by earlier Republican leaders – a country shouldering global responsibilities.
The world did not intrude at the convention, except when China or Iran were recalled for excoriation.
White House counsellor Hope Hicks, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, senior advisor Jared Kushner, Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle arrive for US President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee during the final event of the 2020 Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, August 27, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria
Trump’s populism also extends to the economy. He dismisses the budgetary limits promised by some earlier Republican administrations.
His ignoring of the US’s racial agony, and warnings that Americans will be unsafe under Biden, will not help Trump with idealists, who form a chunk of the US population. But, as CNN’s Stephen Collinson puts it, “Trump’s authoritarian tone and persona and ostentatious slaying of political correctness could have made progress in convincing those white working-class voters who identify with him emotionally and culturally but who do not usually vote to show up in November.”
“We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American patriots,” insisted Trump at the convention. Other Americans, however, are pulled by justice, troubled by injuries Blacks have sustained generation after generation, and keen to recover their nation’s unity.
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The duel continues.
It should be mentioned that the Republican convention was preceded by the arrest of Trump’s close ally and recent chief strategist, the ultra-nationalist Steve Bannon, who was accused of benefiting himself from funds donated for a wall to bar immigrants from Mexico. Later released on bail, Bannon was seized while on a luxury boat owned by a Chinese billionaire!
Bannon was only the latest in a series of arrests of Trump’s high-profile aides. No one seems able to tell what effect these arrests will have on Trump’s prospects in November. And not many seem to ask whether the ones arrested are on Trump’s list of “fierce, proud, and independent American patriots”.
Rajmohan Gandhi is teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.