AT THE REPUBLICAN Convention in 2016, I had one overriding question and I asked it to everyone who would speak to me.
Over and over I asked the same thing, “Why are you supporting Donald Trump?”
The first answer was invariably the same: “I hate Hillary Clinton.”
After that there was no unanimity, as if the talking points only had one bullet. But among the many, many other secondary reasons that people gave for supporting Trump, my sense was that what was motivating people was a deep resentment of the direction that America had moved during the Obama years. Political correctness, identity politics, income inequality, and the “elites,” were prime villains, but they seemed stand-ins for what people would not put a sharp point on: that others were doing better and getting more than they were, and it was not fair.
While the support for Trump seemed solid in 2016, it was a lot easier to understand what people didn’t like about the country’s direction than what they liked about him.
That does not appear to be the case in 2024.
Trump is now a well-known commodity and at this convention there is great enthusiasm for him. He has been able to align that enthusiasm with what is now his core message, or maybe the core message is now aligned with the enthusiasm. But in either case, there is no doubt what that message is. Were I to express it in the concrete poetry style embraced by the entrepreneurs turning Trump’s tweets into poetry, it might look like this:
It has been quite a summer for the Trump team. Just 45 days ago the former president was in a New York courtroom, hearing — 34 times in succession — that he had been found to be a felon. But from that low moment, his trend line has been astonishingly good:
Youth with a dash of vigor
I decided to see what Donald Trump Jr. would say about the race. Axios was hosting him at a local gastro-pub, in conversation with Mike Allen, Axios’ co-founder. The crowd was pre-cleared and all wore their credentials. I estimated there were between 150 and 200 people, including press. I counted an equal number of cowboy hats, baseball caps and yarmulkes (3 each).
The event was on the record and Trump was clearly fine with that. He has become very good at this sort of thing. (When the staff told us to take our seats they said, “the show is about to begin.”) He spoke quickly, forcefully and never lost the story line, even when Allen pushed him. He was a quote machine, knew it, and moved quickly whenever he saw any chance to deliver a good line. He was enjoying himself and when Allen tossed him a final question near the one-hour mark, he showed no sign of wanting it to end.
He said he was a longtime advocate for JD Vance and was overjoyed that the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” got the nod. What he likes most is Vance’s “youth and vigor.” He said Vance is good with “hostiles,” a category that appeared to include most of the media. Vance would also help with the “electoral map.” Trump agreed when Allen suggested that they would be “planting Vance in Pennsylvania” where he would connect with the blue-collar worker. With obvious relish, Trump said Vance would destroy Kamala Harris “with facts” in a vice-presidential debate, if there is one. He thinks there is a good chance that Vance is the 48 that will follow his father’s 47.
Trump described learning about the shooting when he was out on a boat and not knowing what happened for a long while. When he finally was able to talk with his father he asked, “how’s the hair?”
The reply: “lots of blood in it.”
When Donald Trump Jr. finally was able to talk with his father after Saturday’s assassination attempt, he asked, ‘how’s the hair?’ The reply: ‘lots of blood in it.’
He got a strong and friendly audience reaction when he said, “Our family is a little different.”
Allen asked about the report that Trump Sr. has decided to tone down the rhetoric and is a “changed man” since being shot “in the face.” Trump Jr. said that was the case and he expected it to continue, that is, unless his father is attacked. When that happens, of course he will fight back. “That’s who he is.”
He took the opportunity to return again and again to what he saw as the fundamental between a weak Joe Biden and a strong Donald Trump, culminating with his answer to the question of whether he wanted Biden to stay in the race.
“It doesn’t matter.”
After the election Trump Jr. doesn’t want to go into the administration. He said he doesn’t want to choose a single person of the thousands who will be hired. The job he wants — and clearly intends to have — is “to block the people who would be a disaster.” He said in the first administration they didn’t have time to know what the people they hired were really about and added, to my ear ominously, “now we know who they are.”
Before finishing, he teased a possible endorsement from RFK Jr. and with that a possible role for him “in Health.”
I go out in search of protesters, but after yesterday’s coordinated demonstration there were not many to be found.
Let’s ask the panel
I drop into a session at the Milwaukee Athletic Club which is devoted to considering what changes are coming in the new Trump administration (not a “potential” new Trump administration; the four panelists were convinced it was inevitable) on antitrust and intellectual property law, as well as the broader issue of administrative regulation in general.
The panel was organized by ACG Advocacy, LLC, a Washington based strategic consulting firm, and it covered some of the common talking points of the “conservative movement” — reducing the influence of the administrative state and returning power to the legislature. The Supreme Court’s end-of-term decision in the Loeper case got accolades for its determination that the courts would no longer give deference to administrative agencies’ interpretation of their own regulations. By reigning in the agencies, the panel thought that the high court has given Trump a great opportunity.
One of the panelists was Matt Whitaker, who had a brief stint as acting U.S. Attorney General after Jeff Sessions exited the Trump administration. He was replaced by William Barr after four months, but clearly has dined out on that experience. At one point, Whitaker got laughter when he referred to the opposition as “latte-drinking coastal elites.” He said that he was pleased to have the chance to “travel the country and spread the good news of Donald Trump.”
Members of the panel spoke approvingly of certain competition cases brought against the big tech companies during the Trump administration. They expressed the desire to see the new administration create an environment in which small tech startups would be able to innovate and thrive. Their wariness about the size and reach of big tech extended to the “censorship” of conservative voices on social media.
The most interesting speaker — at least to me — was a monologue by Andrei Iancu who had previously served as the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under Trump. Now at the white shoe New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, Iancu was generally the most restrained member of the panel in his commentary but he sounded positively messianic when he said the country was on the cusp of extraordinary technological changes that would affect every living person in a profound way. He listed advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and the cellular communications infrastructure as converging to create a nearly unimaginable leap in technological capabilities.
With real fervor he said that he wanted to sound the alarm that the United States was in danger of losing the race for convergence to China. He predicted the country that gets there first will enjoy an advantage that will be very hard for the other to reverse.
He said this was “our Sputnik moment.”
Performance art
I wander past a storefront outside of the security perimeter and notice a diorama that fills the large display window. The scene is startling: two men in suits are sitting at a conference table wearing business suits. Around them the floor is covered with vaguely corporate documents — graphs and charts and numbers — blowing around in the air from a fan off in the wings. In the center of the conference table there is a large mound of sand and both men are tipped forward and their heads are buried — irretrievable deeply — in the sand pile. The work is called “Vanishing Act.”
I walk around the corner and there is another piece of public art. This one is a child’s nursery full of brightly covered plastic toys and all the accoutrements of a cheerful child’s life, but when you look more carefully you see that the plastic has melted and the wallpaper is peeling. There is a man — it is a live actor — in the room. He is sweating and he has what must be a wet rag on his head. He has a screwdriver and is gamely but somewhat desperately taking apart a small air conditioner. The process isn’t going well and he punctuates the effort with an occasional grimace. This one is called “Seek Alternative Shelter.”
The two pieces are part of four works that were created by the artist Annie Saunders and presented by the nonprofit organization Climate Power. Collectively they show the effects of the extreme weather events that are happening throughout the country and for which the country is responding by burying its head in the sand. A ticker tape-ish display above the work flashes the name of the villain: “Big Oil”
Saunders is on hand to docent the works for viewers. For the Seek Alternative Shelter piece she points out the desperation of the actor who is trying to repair the air conditioner. She says that before creating the work she interviewed dozens of extreme heat survivors and heard stories about the incredible importance that a malfunctioning air conditioner could have to a family in the midst of extreme heat.
The event was installed yesterday, just in time for the convention.
As I leave the convention to head home, I pass a merch stand where yesterday I talked to a young man who travels around the country selling merchandise at Trump rallies. His name is Damon Ingram and he is from Columbia, South Carolina. He told me that he was at the rally in Pennsylvania when Trump was shot.
I ask if he saw it. He said that he did, but when he heard the sound he didn’t realize it was a shot. He said he had been shot and it didn’t sound like that. He wasn’t contesting the storyline, just sharing an observation.
I asked him how sales had been and he said that they were really good. I asked what was the biggest seller. He said it was the one that says “I am voting for the convicted felon.”
That one is sold out.
Bay City News staff writer Joe Dworetzky is in Milwaukee to report on the daily drama and curiosities he will encounter at the Republican National Convention.
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