You might have thought he got it all out of his system in his nearly two-hour ramble last night, but Donald Trump still intends to follow his vice president’s keynote with yet another speech tonight.
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Trump → think → speech
If you don’t want to tune it out completely—and we certainly understand if you do—we’ll be live again on Substack and YouTube with convention coverage tonight.
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you → want → coverage
Dallas, Texas
The vibe at the first day of the Republicans’ midterm convention was a pretty simple one: Play the hits, no matter how little sense it makes to play them, and offer the people some free cash while you’re at it.
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you → play → it
Hoping to hear the hits was why Phil and his brother Eric made their way from Nebraska and Arizona to the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
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Phil → hop → Dallas
The senior citizens are Trump diehards—Phil said he knocked on more than three thousand doors for the president—and they wanted to attend the GOP gathering because it’s something that’s never happened before.
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that → say → gathering
Plus, there’s some star-watching to be done (“I saw Brandon Hill.
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I → ’ → Hill
I saw Nick Shirley over there.
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I → see → Shirley
You know who that is?”), and the brothers wanted to see Trump in person.
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brothers → know → person
But mostly they’re worried.
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they → ’re → ?
From the COVID-era restrictions (they’re big RFK Jr. fans) to illegal immigrants flooding America to inflation caused by Joe Biden “helicoptering cash,” it’s all a problem.
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it → ’re → cash
As long as Trump can avoid the Zionist efforts to get him further bogged down in regime change in Iran, he’ll be okay.
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he → avoid → Iran
Unfortunately I did not run into Phil and Eric on the way out of the arena, so I didn’t get to ask them how the new “Trump Dividend” the president announced—a promise to send $5,000 checks to “every adult citizen” if Republicans keep the House and Senate—would solve the Cash-Helicopter Conundrum.
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Republicans → run → Conundrum
As Catherine Rampell noted in our livestream last night, the Trump Dividend would cost well over $1 trillion.
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Dividend → note → trillion
(Then again, as Catherine has written, promising people scads of money and then not delivering on those promises has been one of Trump’s signature moves in politics—and, for that matter, in business.)
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promising → write → business
The running theme through Day One was pretty clear: Things were bad under Biden, right?
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Things → run → Biden
Democrats want “the Biden burden back,” as Michigan House candidate Mike Bouchard put it.
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Bouchard → want → it
Speaker after speaker came to the stage to denounce high prices under Biden and praise the GOP-led Congress for turning things around, all while folks on the floor waved signs reading “Keep the Majority.”
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folks → come → Majority
You could get the sense at times that the crowd could see the contradiction there and understood just how ridiculous this was, given the weak applause that accompanied many of these early speakers.
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that → get → speakers
(The fact that I spent $65 on gas an hour before heading to the American Airlines Center probably has something to do with the lack of excitement.)
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I → spend → excitement
But what these folks really came for was red meat, and nothing’s redder than the bloody culture wars.
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nothing → come → wars
After a series of pretty stale speakers, South Carolina’s Sen. Tim Scott jazzed the audience up by denouncing James Talarico for believing in six genders and for saying God is nonbinary.
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God → jazz → genders
Scott went full revival preacher, hopping around the stage, throwing his arms up, and getting the crowd fired up; it was a shot of energy desperately needed for a crowd that was kind of dying.
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that → go → crowd
Border security was also a big hit, with Paul Perez of the National Border Patrol Council—the union representing Border Patrol employees—getting a standing ovation while introducing Ken Paxton, the embattled GOP candidate running against Talarico in Texas.
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Perez → represent → Texas
And Paxton is . . . well, he’s no Tim Scott.
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he → ’ → ?
He glistens like Richard Nixon, sans the charisma.
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He → glisten → charisma
His speaking style is halting and stilted; the applause from the crowd felt perfunctory.
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applause → feel → crowd
Paxton ran through the same litany of Tala-freak-o slams Scott hit—nonbinary, six genders, he’s transing your kids—and the crowd ate it up.
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crowd → run → it
That’s the rub here: This is a convention that’s dedicated to negative polarization, that’s trying to give people something to vote against rather than for.
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that → ’ → something
Jon Husted, the Ohio senator locked in a tight race against Democrat Sherrod Brown, seems like a nice enough guy, in a bland, blue-suited sort of way.
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Husted → lock → way
But the only thing Husted said that got folks excited was that Brown “demanded that we call mothers ‘pregnant persons.’”
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we → say → mothers
There is one thing the folks here were willing to cheer for rather than against: Trump himself.
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folks → be → ?
Any invocation of Texas being Trump country was met with raucous cheers; any mention of Trump working for the people led to cheers of hallelujah.
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Trump → meet → hallelujah
T.W. Shannon, a Republican running for lieutenant governor in Oklahoma, had a bit more pep in his step than Paxton or Husted, but his biggest applause line wasn’t shocking: “The greatest president in American history, President Donald J. Trump.”
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line → run → history
There can be no doubt about it: This wasn’t just a Party for Trump, it was a party for Trump, an effort to make the 80-year-old feel like the center of attention and give him the energy needed to get out on the trail.
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old → make → trail
And there can be no doubt about this: The Republican party is the party of Trump, his name spelled out in sparkly letters at the front of the arena, first row, his cheering section never stronger.
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section → spell → arena
And Trump wants to make sure everyone knows it.
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everyone → want → it
His speech, which went on for an hour and forty-five minutes—longer than even his most longwinded speech at a normal Republican convention—had three big themes: that Democrats are scary, that Trump can deliver prosperity, and that this year’s election is a referendum on Trump, Trump, Trump.
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election → go → Trump
“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” he said to the cheering audience—and then, as an aside, softer, acknowledged, “I’m on the ballot, I’m on the ballot,” no pretending necessary—before finishing the thought: “just one more time.”
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pretending → ask → thought
The thing about Trump is that he actually believes it when he says stuff like, “I don’t think anyone’s ever had two years like we have.”
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we → believe → years
There’s a reality-distortion field surrounding him, one where gas prices don’t register, where inflation doesn’t exist.
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inflation → ’ → him
…and 70 more, not listed.
