Donald Trump tries to be both unifier and pugilist in his convention speech

THE WEEKS leading up to the Republican National Convention had been some of the best of Donald Trump’s political career. Any news about the Democratic Party seemed to focus on doubts about Joe Biden’s viability as a presidential candidate. Polling showed the race steadily tilting in Mr Trump’s favour. And, just a few days before the party’s gathering, the former president survived an assassination attempt with uncommon poise. When he appeared triumphantly on the stage of the convention on July 18th, Mr Trump had an opportunity to reinforce his dominance of the presidential race. He ended up delivering the longest nomination-acceptance speech in modern American history—and reminding voters that even while striving to appear presidential he remains as pugnacious and polarising as ever.

“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America,” Mr Trump declared early on. He had hinted beforehand that his remarks would offer an uncharacteristically unifying message—the barn-burner he had planned just wouldn’t work after his brush with death—and the first half hour of the 93-minute oration did exactly that. Speaking with rare restraint, he said “There is no victory in winning for half of America.”

Though unusual for Mr Trump, rhetoric about bringing the country together has long been standard fare for more traditional American leaders. What set his remarks apart, and created one of the evening’s most dramatic moments, was when Mr Trump turned away from generic language and described in great detail the attempt on his life.

“If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark,” a sombre Mr Trump recalled. He said he was “not supposed to be here”.  When the crowd began to chant “Yes you are!” he responded, “I thank you, but I’m not, and I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.” Here, it seemed, was a new Donald Trump. The emotional high point of the evening came when Mr Trump paid tribute to the supporter who had been killed in the crossfire at his rally.

That Mr Trump was so warmly welcomed was not a surprise. Many convention-goers had shown genuine emotion seeing their leader, bandage over his right ear, simply appear at the convention on its first night. Over the coming days he watched vanquished rivals—Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis most notable among them—pay fealty. Some speakers deviated from their talking-points. But, by and large, throughout the week speaker after speaker stayed on message, avoiding divisive themes like Mr Trump’s baseless allegations that the 2020 election had been stolen. Talk of restricting abortion rights also proved relatively scarce compared with past Republican gatherings.

This made the second two-thirds of Mr Trump’s speech particularly jarring, at least to non-partisan observers. The former president treated the final hour of his remarks like a campaign speech, meandering through supply-side economics while denouncing “crazy Nancy Pelosi”. Mr Trump’s advisers had suggested that he wouldn’t even name Mr Biden during his remarks, something the candidate had tacitly confirmed. “I’m not going to use the name anymore, just one time,” Mr Trump said, after name-checking the president. He then mentioned his opponent by name again. “If you took the ten worst presidents in the history of the United States” he said, “added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done.” In failing to restrain himself, Mr Trump delighted his adoring crowd but mixed his message to the country as a whole.

Mr Trump’s speech had been preceded by a performance by the musician Kid Rock, whose genre-bending blend of country, heavy metal, rap and rock left some on the convention floor confused. Mr Trump’s own genre-bending performance may have left the wider American audience similarly puzzled. Was the Republican nominee presenting himself as Trump-the-unifier or Trump-the-pugilist? After a dramatic week in American politics, it seems he now wants to be both.■