Main Edition
US
FR
July 14, 2024 - 5:30pm
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has given American politics and the opening of the Republican National Convention on Monday an electric hypercharge. The instantly-iconic images of a blood-stained Trump pumping his fist at the sky have helped rally Republican voters around the former president.
Even before the shooting, the RNC in Milwaukee looked like a high-stakes affair. Testifying to the way that Trump and his allies have tried to re-engineer the GOP as a more thoroughly populist party, the 2024 Republican platform is dedicated to the “forgotten men and women of America”. Past Republican platforms could be sprawling records of policy commitments; the 2016 platform had over 50 pages of text. At only 14 pages, the 2024 platform is more like an infomercial, focused on broad themes of populist economics and offering a partial retrenchment on some cultural issues.
This platform does include some traditional Republican talking points about cutting taxes, slashing regulations, and expanding domestic energy production. But it breaks from the dogma of the Tea Party era in its approach to entitlements, pledging in all caps to “FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE.” It calls for efforts to expand American manufacturing (including tariffs) and regain control at the border.
While the platform declares war on “woke” identity politics, it departs from some of the other commitments to social conservatism that used to characterise the GOP. It says little about gun rights, a major change from the 2016 platform. In a disappointment to many pro-life activists, the platform recasts abortion policies as an issue for the states. Many in Trump’s circle have blamed abortion for the party’s electoral disappointment in the 2022 midterms, so this attempt to deflect abortion policies to the state level can be seen as part of an outreach to some suburban and swing voters who remain concerned about sweeping limits on abortion.
The speakers at the convention are a public face for this rebrand. Of course, there is a gamut of Republican politicians, from Texas Senator Ted Cruz to West Virginia Senate candidate Jim Justice and his mascot Babydog. But speakers will also include media personality Amber Rose, UFC head Dana White, journalist Tucker Carlson and Teamsters union president Sean O’Brien. If the 2012 RNC was stocked with paeans to “job creators”, this RNC line-up seems distinctly more blue-collar, with a hearty dose of the politics of suspicion that characterises the world of the Very Online.
Republicans have a political opportunity. Voters — especially those without a college degree — remain deeply dissatisfied with Joe Biden, whose approval rating lingers somewhere in the upper-30s. Working-class voters from a range of ethnic backgrounds may be more open to the GOP than they’ve been in years, and national Democrats still seem divided over Biden. While he promised a return to normal in 2020, the President has stoked the flames of political conflict by continually calling Trump and his supporters an existential threat to American democracy. But Republicans still need to show that they can deliver for working families, and they cannot afford to ignore those broader policy themes.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeExpect for the shooter to be hailed as a hero by left wing Democrats.
Why, he missed.
He tried!
Have anyone ever said something like ” the so called compassionate left”?
I appreciate the sarcasm. But the sarcasm means you still think, deep down, that leftists are compassionate. No one would ever say, for example, “the so called compassionate nazis”
It’s really, really, important this bizarre link with leftism and compassion be severed completely. That severing process starts with how you think of them and what you say about them.
Whether you like him personally or not, Trump is an old school Democrat, just like I am. It’s the Dems who have shifted radically, not the Republicans. I would have considered myself a Democrat even 10 years ago. Now I’m a far right extremist, even though my values and policy preferences haven’t changed.
“Voters seem open to a populist correction, but they are also sceptical of a more “burn it all down” kind of radicalism or sweeping domestic regime change.”
Who wants to burn it all down? Populists want to save their countries from radical leftists who are actively trying to burn it all down today.
“Populists want to save their countries from radical leftists”
Yes, this sums it up completely. The far-left is the problem as they have all the power and are the fascists. The far-right doesn’t actually exist in serious terms, it’s largely figment of the far-lefts imagination as they attempt to cling to power.
Normal people just want normal politics where situations are dealt with using logic and common sense and not entrenched ideology.
Hi again. To a lot of people full immunity for the president, unfounded claims of voting fraud, the promise to start out as a dictator (‘on day one’), the slash-and-burn approach to the administrative state, and Trump’s generally incendiary style and volatlie and vindictive personality add up exactly to a
I don’t give Trump a pass for his language. I have repeatedly stated that he would not be my choice as the GOP candidate. His reaction to the 2020 election was childish and narcisssitic.
The burn it all down rhetoric is just another version of threat to democracy. That’s not what supporters of populists want and any narrative that Trump will burn it all down is just that – a narrative.
The dictator on day 1 underlies he very problem with the regime media today. It was clearly a joke – stupid joke for sure – but he was referring to drill baby drill and new executive orders for the border. This of course has been used as a pretense for the regime media and the Dems to relentlessly hammer Trump as an existential threat to democracy. Meanwhile, Biden gets a pass for his presidential speech in 2022, or even comments like Covid being a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
No one batted an eye when Obama removed 200 officers in the military within a year of his second term. This stuff happens all the time, on both sides of the fence. Trump was repeatedly thwarted by the bureaucracy in his first term. He has the right and expectation to remove high level bureaucrats who do not support his policy vision. This isn’t some dismantling of democracy.
Excellent comment.
I haven’t heard Trump say that his threat of dictatorship on day one was a joke.
You may say it is just a joke. Other people – supporters of populists too – probably *do* want Trump to smash the system, or burn it down. He would hardly keep saying all these things if they turned most of his supporters off, would he now? Anyway, if you keep making that kind of comment – “Lock her up!”, “Dictator on day 1”, “The FSB should hack her emails some more!” – of course your opponents are going to take you at your word. If you do not want to be treated like a dangerous threat to democracy, you should stop talking like one.
Trump is a petty criminal. Do you give him a pass for that? Or do you not trust the US judicial system enough to condemn the fellow for continuing to peddle the voting fraud claims?
So boring
I think he actually said he would be a dictator for one day if elected – which is not quite the same thing.
Nevertheless, he could do quite a bit of damage in one day and I haven’t heard him say it was just a joke.
You don’t seem to hear, or observe, or understand much though, so…
To a lot of people full immunity for the president…
.
“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the court wrote. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
.
Do you read English, motherf…er?
I do. And it is true that he is not immune if he rapes someone or robs a convenience store. He is only immune if he orders the military to kill his opponents, or prosecutors to harass them, or state officials to falsify the election result, or sells pardons to criminals. Somehow I am not reassured.
If you read English, I would recommend the Supreme Court opinions of Sonya Sotomayor or Amy Coney Barrett. You would find out just how enormously wide his immunity is.
If you read English, you read the Sotomayor dissent as a childish tantrum with no substance (including Barrett’s dissent in the same category as Sotomayor’s is a disgusting insult).
There is no reasoned interpretation of official acts that can possibly include “orders the military to kill his opponents, or prosecutors to harass them, or state officials to falsify the election result, or sells pardons to criminals” If you believe that nonsense then you may as well have just left out your rape or rob comment – if you truly believe that POTUS can twist “official acts” to include political assassination, then you believe there is no limit and you have failed completely to understand the ruling and the Constitution.
These people are incurable. Almost everywhere I read that the Supreme Court banned abortion, while it only delegated this issue to the states, which is correct, since the issue of abortion does not appear in the American Constitution. Moreover, I am absolutely sure that the right to abortion cannot be a constitutional right in any country following the Judaeo-Christian tradition. This is a basic question of the morality of society.
At the same time, I am convinced that abortion should be allowed and regulated by appropriate legislation. Life doesn’t fit very well within moral boundaries; we demand marital fidelity, but do not cut off heads in case of adultery.
Funnily enough, I mostly agree with you there.
Funnily enough, you need to stop watching MSNBC if you want a shred of truth.
What is MSNBC? I live in Europe.
Anyway, I was not trying to be funny. I do actually agree with what El Uro said on abortion – and Roe v. Wade was clearly ‘a new constitutional principle invented out of thin air‘, quite as much as Trump’s immunity.
Why do you slag me off for agreeing with you?
Perhaps we think alike and this is just a matter of mutual understanding.
Anyway, I’m sorry for the “these people are incurable” towards you
Thanks. I am sure there are some things we disagree a lot about, but at least we can discuss them. Till next time 😉
OK, I am not a lawyer. But I am told that the President is absolutely immune when he is exercising his core constitutional powers. Giving orders to the military and telling them to go after the enemies of the United States is surely a core constitutional power. So is being the supreme head of federal law enforcement. If a future President Trump should decide that some particular enemy of his is an enemy of the United States and need to be neutralised by the military, or is part of a notorious crime family and needs to be prosecuted (like the Biden Crime Family?) how is the President not immune? To stop him you would have to investigate him, look into his motives, check if his actions could be justified etc., all those thing which the US supreme court have just said that you cannot and may not do. In practice, of course, what might happen is that the US Supreme court would eventually decide that this was not on and change their interpretation of the constitution – again – so that only the people they liked could get way with things. Which would still not be the rule of law, just the rule of President+Supreme court.
As for Sotomayor, she has some very clear and convincing arguments. She says that presidential immunity is *not* in the constitution, is *not* in any legal precedent, is *not* evident in any of the workings or reasonings of the Founding Fathers, and that there is every reason to believe that if the Founding Fathers had wanted presidential immunity they could and would have written so. In short the Supreme Court invented a new constitutional principle out of thin air, much like earlier judges did in Roe v. Wade, or in the Dred Scott case (which said, among other things, that black people could not become citizens, and that they had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect“).
Those arguments are simple enough that non-lawyers get a look in. If you believe, unlike Sonya Sotomayor, that presidential immunity was always in the constitution, could you point out to us where it says so?
Haven’t you noticed that all the things you suggest Trump might do have already been done by the Biden administration?
Give me a break! Biden has neither had his domestic enemies asassinated nor gone against them on spurious grounds – Trump tried to overturn the election, remember? But if you disagree with me on those points the remedy is simple: You let the court cases run to completion, and trust the legal system to get the right verdict. And if Biden has harassed Trump on invented charges, you take Biden to court once he is no longer president.
Of course, now that half the judges belong to Trump that will be harder, but it is still the tight way to do it.
Biden has neither had his domestic enemies asassinated nor gone against them on spurious grounds
Are you sure about that? He’s had quite a few imprisoned on spurious grounds. And if you think the Pennsylvania shooter knew which building to go to and that there would be no-one on the roof based purely on a lucky guess then I have a rather attractive bridge to sell you.
In American politics, the gap between rhetoric and reality is large. In Trumpian politics the gap is intergalactic in its scale. Regardless of what Trump says today or said in the past, he has four years as President on record in which he governed mostly like a standard Republican with some populist lnitiatives that he mostly had to do himself to the extent possible through executive orders because he couldn’t get enough support in Congress. The most noteworthy events were the China trade war and COVID, and the former was a long overdue response to economic warfare while and the latter was entirely beyond his control. He SAID many things that were inflammatory, irresponsible, and pretty stupid, but his administration did nothing remotely unconstitutional until, arguably, Jan 6th, and even then it was a lot of talk with not much action. This narrative that Trump is a dangerous tyrant simply isn’t believable anymore. I’ll buy that he’s a loud mouthed thin skinned jackass but he’s not Hitler. He just isn’t.
Trump is way too volatile and erratic for anyone to predict what he is not going to do. It is like taking some violent, hyper-jealous and controlling husband (think O.J.Simpson) and say “No worries, his wife is safe, he has never killed anyone yet”. They never have – until they do. As far as I can see Trump is perfectly capable of nuking Iran, giving Poland back to Putin, or giving the Republican state houses full control of future federal elections – if he feels that would boost his ego. Trump is no Hitler, agreed, but that is because Hitler was consistent and competent – and Trump is not. He might well be a new Idi Amin, though. Or Caligula.
What has Trump actually done that is as crazy as a Caligula or an Idi Amin? I’ll grant that he says things that are completely unhinged and incomprehensible but words are not actions. He says insane and controversial things to provoke an equally unhinged and hyperbolic reaction, reducing politics to schoolyard taunting level. He knows most Americans don’t trust the media and his base actively hates it. He drew the criticism and hatred of the elites and media in order to play to the large and growing percentage of Americans that are not happy with how things are going. He created this narrative and the anti elite mood of the country runs so deep that it worked. He has been playing people, including his critics, the media, and everyone else who cannot hide their utter disdain for him. Trump takes that disdain and puts it in a spotlight then equates disdain for himself with disdain for the people. If you hate the people’s champion, you must hate the people. He has set this trap time and again and his enemies keep on taking the bait. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but you’ve been played and Trump is not incompetent. He’s very good at what he does, but he’s not playing the game you think he is.
He’s not really some nationalist trying to make America great again. There is no Trumpian master plan to take over the country or the world. His only goal has ever been to appease his own ego. His psychology is dirt simple compared to someone like Hitler, Stalin, Putin, or Chairman Xi and he isn’tremotely insane like Caligula or Amin. It isn’t cimplicated. When he was denied membership into the really exclusive circles of the super rich, he got pissed at them and this is his revenge. It was easy for him to channel his personal anti-elite rage into becoming the avatar of the people’s rage. They wouldn’t let him into the most exclusive levels of their elite club so he came back with a mob of angry peasants to burn it down, and he pretty much has. Davos man is now a pejorative. Nobody who wants to actually win political office wants the labels establishment or elite anywhere near their name. Whether he wins or loses in 2024, he has already had a profound impact on history without being a true tyrant. I will never like the man or his style, but I can respect him for what he does well and recognize what he is, and what he isn’t
“Republican platform is dedicated to the “forgotten men and women of America”.”
Outstanding, because most of us are now forgotten. And if you are still in that happy group of the unforgotten (hedge fund managers, K Street lobbyists) don’t be complacent. Globalization will get to you in due course.
““FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE.””
Smart policy move. Globalization and the loss of American jobs mean more people heavily rely on these benefits.
“the platform recasts abortion policies as an issue for the states”
Again, outstanding. The states are where abortion rights should be determined.
And hopefully Trump can control his most demagogic and outspoken instincts. If he can do that, as he did in the recent debate with Biden, he may well win the presidency.
The doctor’s office is where abortion should be determined, between the woman and her doctor not between state politicians.
A doctor? What input should a doctor have if I just want to kill my baby because of the inconvenience of having to be a mom? Or just because I didn’t want to use a condom when I decided to shag that cute guy in the club?
Biden comes from the era of the Cold War, and his record remains one of conflict with other Nations: he has supported five wars in his term. He demonizes other leaders, and now even his fellow citizens. I don’t believe people in other countries are evil, even if they wish their societies to be different to ours, so I want the USA to pursue a path of friendship, trade and cooperation. Live, and let live. I don’t believe Biden’s claim that Mr Trump is a threat to American democracy, but have a deep suspicion that Mr Biden’s rigid opinions are. Mr Biden is not a President that I want.
Thanks for a very good comment Will. Biden is not somebody for whom I could ever vote for the reasons you state. Trump is “different” and I don’t like different in a leader, too many expectations and unknowns even though we saw 4 years of the Donald which does not auger well. At least as you point out there were no significant wars overtly started by the US between 2016 and 2020. Biden is also significantly cognitively impaired so a Trump win is guaranteed anyway.
The assassination attempt was the best thing that could have happened to Trump.
An expert marksman then.