I will make something clear before sharing some honest, perhaps startling thoughts. I did not support either of the major party presidential candidates in 2016 and wrote about it here. I could not endorse either in 2020, and explained why here. I fully expect my third consecutive write-in this November, for the same reasons as stated in my 2020 column, plus the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the attempt to overturn the results of the election, which was not a failure of “decorum” and “norms” but something else and, I believe, more sinister.
But I strongly believe that in my profession and as far as you are able you must not let your views and convictions become cataracts over your eyes that cloud your vision. You have to see as clearly as you can and say what you see. And you must be alive to the spirit of things, and their meaning.
I state all this for clarity’s sake as the political year heats up. If I say the Republicans had a stupendous convention I am not saying I am Trumpist; if I urge Democrats to climb their way out of the Slough of Despond I am not declaring myself a Democrat. It has been said of this column that it does balls and strikes, and I take it as a compliment but I don’t think it’s true. Umpires don’t tell the pitcher to try a fastball or the batter to shift his stance. I do. My advice to both parties is shaped by my thoughts, which are those of a political conservative. I want both parties to be clean and constructive and to shine, and I want to be moved by their excellence.
And so, to the Republican National Convention: It was stupendous, a triumph in every way from production through pronounced meaning and ability to reach beyond the tent. It moved me. Madeline Brame, speaking of the stabbing death in New York of her son, and District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “soft on crime” response, moved me. The Gold Star families whose sons and daughters died at the Abbey Gate during the botched withdrawal from Kabul and were later abandoned by the White House moved me. What love—and what an indictment.
The convention was wild in the way things that are alive are wild. Harmeet Dhillon covered her head with a shawl to sing a Sikh prayer; Amber Rose, the beautiful young woman with face tattoos being cheered for speaking about what it is to support Donald Trump in her media world, and why she is willing to pay the price; Shabbos Kestenbaum, the Harvard grad suing Harvard for discrimination over its failures after Oct. 7; J.D. Vance’s mother throwing kisses to the crowd as it chanted her name, and her son saying maybe they’ll have her 10th anniversary clean and sober in the White House. The citizens were so much more eloquent than the professionals.
And of course Sean O’Brien, head of the Teamsters, railing against corporate greed to a Republican convention whose delegates warmly applauded.
And none of that was even the headline. The headline: This wasn’t a divided party, it was a party united. It wasn’t only Mr. Trump’s party, it was an explicitly Trumpian party.
We saw something epochal: the finalization and ratification of a change in the essential nature of one of the two major political parties of the world’s most powerful nation. It is now a populist, working-class, nationalist party. That is where its sympathies, identification and affiliation lie. There will be shifts, stops and accommodations in the future, no party ever has a clear line, history intervenes, but it is changed, and there will be no going back.
This was a party that at least for a week could turn the page on its obsessions. Election denialism was out, a post-DEI future in.
Observers have noted how joyous the delegates seemed, and they did. It is not only that they believe the assassination attempt, and Mr. Trump’s response to it, which has entered American political mythology, seemed to confer an air of the mystical and an affirmation of their loyalty. They were also happy because it’s settled now, and they won.
The first time this Republican Party gathered it was 2016 and the mood was darker, defensive around the edges. For many it was their first convention. The party was split. People were less sure of things than they said. Does a handful of real and legitimate grievances amount to a philosophy? I own a string of dry cleaners in Indianapolis, and I’m up against the Bushes and Skull and Bones. Maybe the establishment would strike back and smite them in November.
All that is over. A movement that was a joke nine years ago is a party now. Its members are certain they will win in November because they believe the vast majority of Americans feel just like them: a hard no on illegal immigration, unstopped street crime, foreign entanglements. They believe they speak for normal people. Meaning in spite of past apocalyptic talk of civil war, they believe the majority of America is still normal. And like them. There was a funny little affirmation in that.
In any case the long-heralded change has happened, and will have some real part in shaping American politics in the 21st century.
Why did Mr. Trump pick Mr. Vance? For intellectual heft? Sure—he’s policy-focused and fluent. As an attack dog? It’s not as if Mr. Trump needs one but sure, Mr. Vance, in his brief political life, has shown he isn’t shy to pull off the scab. But he is interesting and something new, and the choice strikes me as revealing about Mr. Trump. When he first ran, and in the first years of his presidency, he flailed about because he didn’t know the implications of his own policies. Some of those policies were new to him, a grab bag based on whatever the crowd cheered. In choosing Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump is saying: I know and have embraced a specific policy approach grounded in particular principles and assumptions, and I will institute it. Trumpism has journeyed from the chaotic to the intentional.
It should be added that it was creepy to see members of the Trump family dominating prime speaking slots all week. This was carelessly cultish, and in its carelessness insolent. Mr. Trump’s speech was surprisingly muted, scattered and low-energy. It lacked drama even though he was narrating what it is like to be shot.
To give you a sense of how powerful I think all this has been, I have a feeling it’s going to change the Democratic Party in the coming weeks.
They are professionals; they saw what Milwaukee was. They want to be bold too, they want to be winners, they want to unite and turn the page. Mr. Vance is 39 and about to ignite imaginations. Everything feels open.
Do the Democrats have a golden magic pony among them? Is that what it takes to change? To win? They’re going to find out.
A final point. We have, many of us, for some time—months, certainly the past few weeks—felt various degrees and kinds of horror. But oh these are exciting times. Things are moving, shifting. Again, this is big history. Hold on to your hat.