Patrick Healy: Frank, Michelle, David, the Republican convention is opening on Monday night just 48 hours after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. How do you think the shooting will shape or change the convention, and Trump?
David French: The key change will be in the intensity of the gathering. Expect to see an immense amount of anger and pride. Republicans are rightly proud of Trump’s immediate response to the shooting. His presence of mind to raise his fist to the crowd to signal that he was very much alive and defiant was an impressive act of leadership. And we should all feel angry when someone tries to assassinate a former president and current candidate. We also know, however, that anger can be dangerous, and we’re already seeing conspiracies emerging, including claims that Joe Biden is responsible for the assassination attempt. Our great national challenge will be responding to that anger, to keep it from spiraling out of control. The key player here will be Trump, of course, and his nomination speech may well be the most-watched address in a generation. He has a historic opportunity to rise to the moment — or pull us deeper into darkness.
Frank Bruni: I expect we will see the image of a bloody Trump with his fist raised over and over again, but, also, Republicans will use the convention stage and convention speeches to make the case that the violence at the Trump rally is the doing of Democrats and the left. The shooting is intensifying an ongoing debate about which party is most responsible for the degraded nature of our civic life, and Republicans will be arguing their side of it in Milwaukee from Monday through Thursday.
Patrick: How far do you think Republicans will take it, Frank?
Frank: Well, not long after the end of the gunfire, Trump allies — Elon Musk prominently among them — began raising questions about the Secret Service’s commitment to Trump. I’m watching to see how much further Republican politicians themselves push that kind of thinking and accusation.
Michelle Cottle: I’m guessing the convention organizers find a way to add in an extra dash of: We told you the haters were out to get him. But nothing can bring him down. The myth of Trump has always been wrapped up in his assertions of victimhood and political persecution. This horrific episode fits with and will likely fuel his conception of himself as a man of destiny, a fearless warrior staring down the haters. Trump believes this. Even as he was being whisked off the stage, he was giving that hang-tough fist salute to the crowd. The guy lives for the fight.
Patrick: We’ve all been at G.O.P. conventions before — Frank, Michelle and I as journalists, and David as a convention delegate for Mitt Romney in 2012. How would you describe the Republican conventions you attended in the era before Donald Trump?
Frank Bruni: Civilized. Well, not Clint Eastwood at the Mitt Romney convention in 2012; that moment sort of presaged the loopiness to come. But the 2000 convention at which George W. Bush was nominated, the convention after that, and the 2008 convention with John McCain and Sarah Palin — remember her?! — they had normal rhythms, normal points of suspense, a cast of predictable characters.
Michelle Cottle: I’d say weird but predictable: boring speeches, boozy parties, schmoozing. Like a big reunion for political types.
David French: I first started paying attention to Republican conventions in 1984, when I was a teenage Reagan conservative, and it was clear to even the young me that Republican candidates were trying to inspire — they were reaching for messages of patriotic confidence and individual empowerment. That’s one reason Patrick Buchanan’s 1992 “culture war” speech felt jarring, even in the moment. It was so incongruous with George H.W. Bush’s message in 1988, the call for a “kinder and gentler nation.” But the G.O.P. is a much more Buchananite party now.
Healy: How would you describe what G.O.P. conventions are like in the era of Trump — 2016, 2020, this week?
Cottle: Like a Festivus service — much airing of grievances — attended by folks who wish they were at a pro wrestling match. A blend of dark, apocalyptic rhetoric mixed with the party-like atmosphere you typically get at these gatherings of the faithful, but dialed up a notch because the MAGA movement has that kind of religious fervor.
French: I’d call the tone darkly messianic. The nation is on the verge of extinction, according to MAGA, and there is only one man who can rescue us from the abyss. It’s not attempting to inspire, but to enrage.
Bruni: In the Trump era, conventions aren’t so much political or ideological. They more resemble a gathering of villagers with torches to drive out all those horrible cliques on the left that are supposedly ruining America.
Healy: That villagers with torches image reminds me of moments at the 2016 Republican convention, in Cleveland, when I would see Trump supporters moving through the halls with determination and passion — genuine excitement on their faces. I tried to interview some in the hallways and they had zero interest in that — unlike past conventions, where delegates loved to talk to the news media. They didn’t care about that; they only cared about being there with Trump.
Bruni: Patrick, your memory of Cleveland matches mine, though things have deteriorated even since then. I remember in Cleveland sitting down for a relatively sane interview with a reasonably placid, composed, amiable Kellyanne Conway. That Kellyanne is gone now, disappeared by the evolution of MAGA from political movement to borderline cult.
Healy: Here’s a question about this: I think the MAGA delegates are far more fired up than the Republican delegates I saw in 2008 and 2004. Hasn’t Donald Trump brought the G.O.P. to life and shaken off a certain country club elite fustiness — which is, on one level, pretty good for a political party?
Bruni: Yes, Patrick, and no. It intensifies the loyalty and drive of the true believers. But it also potentially scares off other voters who, I’d argue, really decide presidential elections. It’s really, really important to bear in mind how much different Trump, his supporters and the whole 2024 Republican situation would look if the Democrats weren’t in such disarray and President Biden didn’t seem so very weak, in terms of performance as well as polling.
French: I think you’re on to something, Patrick. Just as there is an immense amount of rage against Trump’s enemies, Trump’s base also tends to have fun. They’re very angry at their enemies and very happy with each other. They’re not just energized by Trump, they’re entertained by him. Everything in the Republican Party — from the anger to the joy — is just more intense now. That intensity is a source of Trump’s strength — he has an incredibly high floor of support — and a source of his weakness. He has a low ceiling, in part because the entire culture of MAGA can be off-putting and even repulsive to those who don’t share its passion.
Healy: Let’s step back in time. What’s the weirdest moment or experience you ever had at a Republican convention?
Bruni: What pops to mind isn’t something I experienced personally but something we all experienced, which is Melania Trump’s 2016 speech and the near-immediate realization by listeners that it had been plagiarized. I mean, a high-stakes moment going that far south? So, so rare (until, I guess, the June 27 Trump-Biden debate). But it said so much about the undisciplined, fraudulent aspects of Trumpworld and Trumpism.
Cottle: Well, the weirdest moment that stuck with me is from a G.O.P. convention I did not attend: Clint Eastwood in 2012, rambling to an empty chair that was supposed to represent Barack Obama. Eastwood’s perplexing performance was a televisual moment for the ages.
French: Ah, the Clint Eastwood chair. I was a loyal Romney delegate in 2012, standing on the convention floor, and it’s difficult to describe the wild swing of emotions in the crowd. It went from exultation to confusion to concern. There was a tremendous cheer when he was announced. Republicans have always been a bit insecure about celebrities. They’ll scorn “Hollywood liberals” but then embrace even D-list actors (and, of course, a real estate developer and reality television star) with both arms when they proclaim conservatism. And here was Clint Eastwood! The biggest of stars! But then the chair routine started, and it never seemed to finish.
Healy: David, it’s rare that we have a convention delegate among us! Anything else that stood out to you from being at the R.N.C. as a delegate?
French: There’s one other thing. There was a strange and palpable sense that Mitt Romney didn’t just have to introduce himself to America, but that he also had to win over the activists in the crowd. I was standing in a group of social conservatives who still weren’t sold on Mitt — mainly because they believed he was a squish on abortion and wasn’t willing to truly fight. The populist turn that we first saw with Buchanan in 1992 and was amplified by Palin in 2008 was well underway.
Healy: So, in terms of the weirdest convention for me, it was 2008 in St. Paul, Minn., and the national debut of Sarah Palin. That was the moment that changed everything about Republican conventions for me. You had a respected leader, John McCain — someone my family and I long admired, a war veteran and America First patriot (the genuine kind) — choosing a running mate who turned out to be a glib, shoot-from-the-hip, policy-free bomb thrower (and not the Newt Gingrich kind). And the crowd went WILD. I remember turning to a Times colleague and saying, “This convention feels like it wishes it could nominate her for president.”
Bruni: Patrick, I’d venture that your “policy-free” description is going to fit this convention even more snugly. It will be about mood more than policy, and that mood will be dark, foreboding, sinister. It will crystallize a change in American politics in the Trump era — but not a change confined to Trump and Trumpism — by which pessimism rather than optimism sells: Elect me to stave off Armageddon.
Healy: Frank, what will you be watching for most at the convention?
Bruni: To me, the most interesting question — point of suspense — is Trump’s speech itself. Since the June 27 debate he has shown glimmers of restraint, as I wrote in my newsletter last week. He has realized that the doubts about Biden create an opening, but that opening depends on certain voters being persuaded that Trump isn’t as unhinged as he really is. So, on the stage in Milwaukee, does he do loosely hinged Trump? Can he? I’m rooting for the lack of discipline, because that version of Trump is the truest one.
Healy: Let’s talk policy. The 2012 Republican convention and campaign was in retrospect the apex of the entitlement reform/austerity/Paul Ryan Republicanism. Ryan’s “Yes, you did build that” line at the convention. Will the Republican convention this week be the apex or just the beginning of a new kind of populism? Steve Bannon meets Oren Cass Republicanism? Or is this a blip of the Trump era, which will flame out eventually?
Bruni: The you-built-that, you-didn’t-build-that crossfire between Republicans and Democrats in 2012 illustrated perfectly one of the main policy divides between Republicans and Democrats for decades running, which was how much of a hand the government should and did have in managing the economy. What’s interesting about that in retrospect is how that question isn’t and won’t be in the foreground this time around. Immigration has just smushed and sidelined that completely. There’ll be talk of the economy, sure, but policy-wise and propaganda-wise, we’ve gone from marginal tax rates to maybe we should build a big, huge catapult and put migrants who’ve crossed the border illegally into it and fling them back to Mexico and points south. Shoot. I inadvertently gave Trump a policy idea.
Cottle: Well, if Senator J.D. Vance is the vice-presidential pick, that suggests a G.O.P. looking to keep the populism train rolling. But talk of inflation and some Bidenomics bashing are a safe bet. High prices and economic pain are among Trump’s biggest cudgels with which to bash the current administration. That said, we’re also sure to see some serious fearmongering on immigration and crime. I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard from the family of someone who was attacked or killed or otherwise victimized by an undocumented immigrant. That kind of thing is like catnip for Trump folks. And over the past year or so, the border crisis wound up having legs beyond the MAGA base.
Healy: And what about abortion rights? How will things play out at the convention between those conservatives who want a national ban and red-meat talk and those who want to project a message of moderate policy and do-no-harm electoral politics to help Trump?
Cottle: I cannot imagine Team Trump would let the abortion issue bubble up into view. His campaign has been working diligently to deny the harm Trump has done and downplay the ongoing threat he poses to women’s reproductive rights — as if his personal views, whatever they may be at the moment, matter more than his having coddled and done the bidding of the anti-abortion movement while president.
French: I agree with Michelle that Trump will do his best to make this an abortion-free convention, apart perhaps from some bragging about Dobbs that Trump can’t help. And the pro-life community is going to let him get away with it. After a round of hand-wringing about the platform, the vast majority of the most stalwart pro-life activists will vote for him again. Trump helped give the anti-abortion movement its greatest triumph and its greatest identity crisis. It made its deal with Trump, and now Trump is coming to collect — demanding both absolute loyalty and compromises the political anti-abortion movement has never agreed to before.
Healy: Let’s do a Bruni-esque round-table lightning round. Short answers, please. What’s the best convention speech you’ve ever heard? Either party.
Bruni: I loved, loved, loved Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention, and I think it had everything to do with his being the nominee at the 2008 Democratic convention.
French: George H.W. Bush in 1988. I think he’s our most underrated modern president, and the “kinder and gentler nation” speech he gave not only helped catapult him to victory, it also broadcast his fundamental decency.
Healy: Bill Clinton at the 2012 Democratic convention, where he made the case for another four years of Obama. Obama said he would appoint him the “secretary of explaining stuff.”
Cottle: Oh, Bill Clinton’s a good one, too, Patrick. I was in the hall for that, and it was a showstopper.
Healy: What was the worst (and most memorable) convention speech you’ve heard?
Bruni: Gonna lean anew on Melania Trump in 2016.
French: Kimberly Guilfoyle in 2020. It was one of the strangest six-minute segments of my life. The intensity, the yelling, the gesturing — all to a room that was empty because of Covid safety measures.
Cottle: I’m gonna cheat and point all the way back to 1992 — before I was covering politics, thank you very much — to Pat Buchanan’s culture war speech. Dark enough to make Trump’s American carnage sound perky.
Healy: Which non-politician would you be most curious to hear at one of the conventions this year?
Bruni: I’m going to give a tactical answer. I’d like to see and hear Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention. The idea that she’d ever run for the presidency is ludicrous, but it reflects the extraordinary respect people have for her. And she’s a fabulous speaker. I’d love to see her take the stage and tell America why and how much Nov. 5 matters.
French: George Clooney. If all goes the way I want, I’d love to hear how he saved the Democratic Party and perhaps the nation from authoritarianism with one well-timed guest essay.
Healy: A final question: If you could go back in time to previous Republican conventions and tell your past selves about what the G.O.P. has become and what its convention is like today, would you believe it? Why or why not?
Cottle: Sure. The first presidential race I covered was the 2000 Bush-Gore matchup. I still remember standing in the rain for hours in Austin on election night as people were melting down out of sheer anxiety, waiting and waiting and waiting for the race to get called so I could do a TV appearance. That pretty much broke me in terms of learning to expect the unexpected.
French: I would absolutely not believe it, in part because I couldn’t believe it as it was happening. I couldn’t believe it even though there were strong warning signs in 2008, and especially in the primary season in 2012. I simply couldn’t convince myself in any previous era that the Republican Party I knew would water down its commitment to ending abortion and wilt in the face of a Russian dictator.
Bruni: I wouldn’t believe it because what the Republican Party seemed most consistently to be was the professed advocate for and guardian of law, order, tradition and conventional patriotism. (Professed but inconstant and, yes, hypocritical.) But it has for eight years now prostrated itself before someone with no respect for law, order, tradition or conventional patriotism. And my younger self had too much faith in America and human nature to see that one coming.
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