One thing is missing from President Trump’s midterm gathering for Republicans this week: any semblance of official party business that forms the backbone of traditional quadrennial conventions.
Essentially, Mr. Trump has stripped out all the perfunctory, yet necessary, parts of a typical presidential convention and kept the made-for-TV elements.
Only once before in modern political history, in 1982, has a national party held a midterm-year gathering in advance of the midterm elections. That event, held by Democrats, went so poorly that the next party chairman called such events “places for mischief” and canceled plans to do it again in 1986.
In Dallas, there will not be a roll call of states awarding delegates to a presidential nominee. There won’t even be a presidential nominee. Or voting delegates. Forget about subcommittees to determine the party’s rules and credentials.
Republicans will not be debating their party platform, though they did not really do that at the last two presidential conventions, either. By now, the party’s platform is generally whatever Mr. Trump decides it is.
Instead, the two-day gathering in Dallas is set to be a pair of six-hour — though perhaps much longer — advertisements for Mr. Trump and his political acolytes. The speakers are a parade of Trump supporters, many of whom are either in his cabinet or on the ballot this November.
Party conventions in presidential years usually take place in the summer, are scheduled to avoid the Olympic Games and are meant to be held when there are few other compelling TV options. This event comes after Labor Day and will compete for national attention against the first two nights of the N.F.L. season.
The 1982 Democratic midterm conference, as it was called then, followed similar events in 1974 and 1978 that were held in December, after the midterm elections. They were essentially kickoff events for the coming presidential elections — though in 1978, Senator Edward M. Kennedy upstaged President Jimmy Carter with a speech that foreshadowed their contentious primary campaign.
Last year Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, floated holding a midterm convention, but the idea was quietly dropped.
Some things in Dallas will look familiar. Vice President JD Vance, who is set to speak on Thursday night, will play the role of potential future presidential contender. His speech will be inspected for both his loyalty to Mr. Trump and indications of his possible ambitions for 2028.
And you can bet that Mr. Trump will preside over a balloon drop, or maybe two of them. They were known to be among his favorite parts of the 2016 and 2024 conventions — and a spectacle that had to be skipped in 2020 when Republicans moved their convention outdoors because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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