“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
The crowd had thought he was dead, recalled on Thursday night, and he wanted to let them know he was OK. “So I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting and started shouting, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’”
The sublime image of Trump at last Saturday’s rally, face bloodied, fist raised, with Secret Service agents and the Stars and Stripes completing the tableau, flashed up on giant TV screens. Delegates at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee responded as one.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” they chanted, punching their own fists in the air in unison. Trump had taken a bullet for them. Their fervour suggested they would be willing to take a bullet for him. A Maga army on the march. A frightening spectacle for American democracy.
In that moment it was clear that Trump’s survival of an attempted assassination had turned him into a figure that transcends politics, an American messiah with swagger. His power over the crowd, summoning anger and sympathy and ecstasy with a flick of a switch, evoked dark chapters in Europe in the 20th century.
Like demagogues of the past, Trump understands spectacle. His instinctive response to a bullet shaving his ear, sparing his life by a quarter of an inch, was a masterpiece of self-mythology. At the convention on Thursday, in an arena that normally hosts the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, he delivered raw political entertainment.
Big screens showed Trump doing his awkward, fist-pumping, flat-footed dance to the sound of Village People’s Y.M.C.A. To Democrats, comedians and much of the world, it is a preposterous sight. To the Trump faithful, it makes him human and lovable.
His wife, Melania – rarely seen these days – walked out to the strains of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in D minor, joining Trump children Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany in the stand. Musician Kid Rock, wearing black hat, dark glasses and shiny cross, sang: “Say fight fight, say fight fight! Say Trump, say Trump!” The crowd repeated the lines in response.
Then came Lee Greenwood singing God Bless the USA, in effect the Trump theme song. Again the crowd joined in. Bright lights began flashing on stage. A white panel slid upwards like a curtain for the big reveal. There stood Donald J Trump, 78, former US president and Man of the Ear, against the backdrop of five giant letters: “TRUMP.”
It was camp and gaudy and kitsch and very Trumpy. Soon after, the entire stage set was transformed into a digital image of the White House – four years after Trump broke protocol by addressing the Republican convention from the actual White House. “USA! USA!” chanted a crowd that held “Make America great again!” and “Fire Joe Biden!” signs. Some shouted: “We love you!”
Then, in a hushed arena, came Trump’s retelling of the attempted assassination and warning that he may never tell it again “because it’s too painful to tell”. He delivered it in a cadence that, as one former Barack Obama aide noted, was like a bedtime story for kids when the goal is to lull them to sleep.
“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God,” he said, wearing dark suit, red tie and ear bandage. “In watching the reports over the last several days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.”
Indeed, numerous convention speakers at the convention have suggested that Trump was saved by divine providence. Ben Carson, his former housing secretary, suggested that God “lowered a shield of protection” over Trump. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, quoted Benjamin Franklin: “God governs in the affairs of men.” Trump’s son Eric offered: “By divine intervention and the angels above, you survived.”
For nine years Trump had tapped into the great American trauma of race and made it about him. Now he has turned religion into a personality cult.
He recounted: “Once my clenched fist went up, high into the air – you’ve all seen that – the crowd realised I was OK and roared with pride for our country, like no crowd I have ever heard before. Never heard anything like it.”
This was the man who once inspired a crowd to storm the US Capitol in an attempted coup. Now the scene in Milwaukee recalled Eleanor Roosevelt’s account of her husband Franklin’s inauguration as US president in 1933: “The crowds were so tremendous. And you felt that they would do anything – if only someone would tell them what to do.”
There was more theatre from the greatest showman. Paying tribute to Corey Comperatore, who died at the Pennsylvania rally, Trump walked over to Comperatore’s fire jacket and helmet, which were hanging on a stand behind him. He leaned over and kissed the helmet and asked for a moment of silence in honour of the former fire chief.
It was so far, so good for “New Trump”, the man who had supposedly been changed forever by a near-death experience. He would now be “contemplative” and “softer” and “unifying”, we were told. And he began promisingly enough, telling the convention: “I am running to be president for all America, not half of America because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
But it did not take long for the old unhinged demagogue to come roaring back. In a 90-minute speech cribbed from his rallies, he vowed to “drill baby drill” and “close those borders” on his first day in office. He baselessly accused Democrats of “cheating” in elections , denounced Washington DC as “a horrible killing field” and warned of a planet “teetering on edge of world war three”.
Trump also spoke of a “massive invasion at our southern border” and claimed immigrants were flooding in from prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums. Cue his now familiar and dated Hollywood film reference: “The late great Hannibal Lecter. He’d love to have you for dinner.” Having promised not to mention Joe Biden by name, he did so 40 minutes in with scathing criticism.
David Axelrod, a former Obama strategist, told CNN: “This is the first good thing that’s happened to Democrats in the last three weeks. This really reminded everyone why Donald Trump is fundamentally unpopular outside this room.”
The long, rambling speech was at odds with an otherwise disciplined convention that, while shocking by the conservative standards of Ronald Reagan or George W Bush, felt less raucous and extreme than the “Lock her up!” chants of 2016. The red meat came with a hint of pink and garnish of moderation.
There were few references to “stop the steal” or January 6 insurrectionists being “hostages”. There was little boasting about the overturning of Roe v Wade, the constitutional right to abortion. There was no real effort to blame Democrats for the attempt on Trump’s life. Even the vendors were selling mostly pro-Trump products rather than anti-Biden gear.
In short, it was a do-no-harm convention for a party feeling confident but cautious as Democrats implode over whether to ditch Biden. But Trump, of course, blew all that up with his grievances and lies. When the divine demagogue finally wrapped, his family joined him on stage as thousands of gold, red, white and blue balloons descended. A singer performed Nessun dorma from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot. None shall sleep indeed.