The new Donald Trump didn’t last long His speech to the Convention was a return to form

Every day since Sunday has been more giddy, more enthusiastic than the last. By the time final microphone tests before his speech echoed through the hallways on Thursday, people were describing it as “the best convention” they’d ever attended. “Historically, Republicans aren’t unified,” one GOP operative told me, “so it’s quite unusual to be at a convention like this.”

A sense of destiny filled the halls. Each night, the man himself walked into the main event like a UFC fighter, glaring steadily into the cameras proudly displaying his incongruously bandaged ear. He was still here. Meanwhile, MAGA rappers and influencers mingled with blue-suited Republican politicians and soccer moms, reflecting the duality of, say, J.D. Vance — an Ivy League venture capitalist who glad-hands with Marjorie Taylor Greene. And everywhere, that photograph of Trump, bloodied and punching his fist.

Delegates fizzed with the nomination of Vance for Vice President. Amber Rose posed for selfies. Sarah Sanders delivered an unexpectedly electrifying speech, and the President’s eldest granddaughter appeared on stage. Roger Stone wore his sunglasses indoors. Chants of “Joe Must Go” and “Fight, Fight, Fight”, echoed around the Fiserv Forum all week.

Trump, though, said nothing on stage. He told an interviewer that he’d torn up a “real rip roarer” of a convention speech and posted a few videos to Truth Social. During the big speeches, he would nod gravely and rarely smile.

All of it seemed only to intensify the devotion of his fans. Their bond with their leader is personal and deep; they follow him to candidates and ideas that they wouldn’t have considered without his endorsement. And now he had survived a bullet. His resilience attracted new donors and unlikely well wishers. Delegates and loyalists projected confidence. And, yet, nobody knew quite what that bullet had done to the man they were there to celebrate, the man whose name was embroidered on their denim jackets and sequin dresses.

“Trump never changes,” one source in the MAGA movement insisted breezily. “Trump. Never. Changes.”

I asked Kevin Roberts, a friend of Vance and president of the Heritage Foundation whether a new Trump might usher in a new season of unity. “Of all the things I would celebrate about President Trump, probably at the top of the list: his intuition about where we are in the country, at any point, whether that was in 2016, or 2020, or today is just off the charts. I think he has very genuinely understood that what the country wants is normal. And he really is a great messenger.”

“Detractors of his on the Left will sort of tear him down on that,” Roberts added. “But he is a great messenger.”

But what would that message be? When he finally arrived on stage, his name literally in lights, the room erupted. The production was spectacular. The cast-list impressive if idiosyncratic, with Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Dana White all taking to the stage.

Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, before delivering a prayer, noted that encounters with death change us all. They “[call] us to reexamine our lives and reevaluate our priorities,” he intoned.

For a while — almost exactly 10 minutes — that certainly seemed to be the case. Trump was almost unrecognisable. Not in looks, but in temperament. He spoke so gently that it was hard to make out the words as he slowly recounted the events in Butler, paying tribute to the slain Pennsylvanian man by displaying his firefighting suit on stage.

He talked of a “providential moment,” and how — in a particularly Trumpian formulation — “God was on my side.”

There was even evidence of the unifying tone we had heard about. “The discord and division in our society must be healed – and we must heal it quickly.” “There is no victory in winning for half of America.” “Whether you’ve supported me in the past or not, I hope you will support me in the future because I will bring back the American Dream.”

Perhaps this was Trump 2.0? Softly spoken, sober, pensive, conciliatory?

It wasn’t to last. As he warmed up, the riffs got longer. He impishly deviated from the script, revelling in his moment. You could see him returning to form before your very eyes. The mood of near-death conversion fell away and then disappeared. Weaponising the legal system, stealing elections, failing the country — the attack lines returned one by one. He boasted of $250 million of business that he had brought to Milwaukee by choosing it for his convention. “I am trying to buy your vote” he joked. “I’ll be honest about that.”

Having let it be known that he wasn’t going to mention Biden, he mentioned Biden. “I’m not going to use that name again,” he vowed. By the end of an hour and twenty minutes — the longest convention speech in history — the almost eerie spell hanging over the convention had been well and truly broken.

Back in Washington the Democrats are busy adding their own changes to the script, possibly including an exit strategy and a new ticket. Within the week, the sacred atmosphere of this past week in Milwaukee could be consigned to history by the drama of a new political opponent. Come the Democrats’ convention in Chicago, that party could have a new story to tell and Republicans will be left with a candidate who sounds a whole lot like the same Donald Trump.

The myth of Butler will now forever be built into Donald Trump’s story. But the halo effect may not last much longer than the bandage on his right ear. Last night he promised to turn “fight, fight, fight” into “win, win, win.” That is not yet a done deal.

---

Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington D.C. Correspondent.

emilyjashinsky