Column: The GOP convention has been a split-screen experience, nasty and nice
J.D. Vance introduced himself by throwing down the age card.
Donald Trump Jr. got some things off his chest.
And for the second night in a row, there was lots of bristling talk on immigration, which is the tip of the MAGA spear and former President Trump’s favorite political cudgel.
Times columnists Anita Chabria and Mark Z. Barabak were in Milwaukee and laid off the beer and cheese curds so they could offer you their clear-eyed assessment of Day 3 of the Republican National Convention.
Barabak: So the big moment Wednesday night was Vance’s formal acceptance of the vice presidential nomination and his me-note address to the nation.
Lots of buzz about the blue dress his wife, Usha, wore in introducing hubby.
What did you think of Vance’s speech and do you suppose the missus, who quit her practice at a lefty San Francisco law firm immediately after Trump made Vance his running mate, was sending some kind of secret message?
Chabria: I’ll start with the dress. I’m in a hotel with lots of convention attendees milling in the lobby. Every day I’ve heard men and women alike both discussing whether it’s OK to wear blue instead of red. I’ll repeat what a California lady in the coffee line said: There’s nothing wrong with red, white or blue.
To be real, I am guessing her dress was chosen by others or at least approved. So, no, she’s not signaling for help.
But I am following Mr. Vance’s speech: That long, long, meandering address that wound up in his family’s burial plot multiple times. For those of you who missed it, he tried to do a callback about how many generations of his family were buried in the same spot on a mountain in eastern Kentucky.
It was, I think, supposed to show what an aw-shucks guy he really is, and how he’s not actually a power-hungry, antiabortion, billionaire-dependent Trump sycophant. It may have worked in his book, but the audience didn’t seem engaged inside the hall, and it started going visibly flat near the end.
What did you think?
Trump’s vice president pick, J.D. Vance, spent time in San Francisco, founding a Silicon Valley technology investing firm.
Barabak: I thought it was a bit overlong, as you suggest. Lot of callbacks to his “Hillbilly Elegy” upbringing.
And a notable aside about his beloved Mawmaw — the grandmother who raised Vance while his mother struggled with addiction — and the 19 loaded guns scattered around her house. (The audience loved it. Never mind the recent attempt on Trump’s life. The more armaments the better!)
It should be noted Vance is pretty much a blank slate, notwithstanding his bestselling memoir and its being made into a Ron Howard movie.
A poll conducted by the Associated Press and the University of Chicago after Vance’s selection found 6 in 10 respondents didn’t know enough about him to have an opinion. Honestly, I would guess that number is closer to 9 in 10.
So if you were just getting to know Vance, you would have seen a young(ish) man singing wholeheartedly from the MAGA song sheet in an affable style.
At 39, he’s exactly half as old as Trump. But, naturally, Vance chose to focus on President Biden — who, at age 81, has a whole three years on the GOP nominee.
Vance was just a kid, he pointed out, when then-Sen. Biden voted for trade deals that helped hollow out the Rust Belt where Vance grew up. He was in high school when Biden voted to support the war in Iraq, which Vance, a Marine veteran, criticized. (Try that at a Republican convention circa 2004.)
“Joe Biden has been a Washington politician longer than I’ve been alive,” Vance noted.
Fact check: True.
What did you think of Don Jr.’s turn at the microphone?
Chabria: Well, if the goal of the convention was to give a kinder, gentler view of the party, Don Jr. torched that with a speech filled with grievance.
But what stood out to me was the upside-down world the Republicans have created around their policies. If you closed your eyes and just listened to those parts of the speech, you would be forgiven for thinking you were listening to a Democrat.
Speaking of the “extreme” Democratic Party, Trump said, “They want us to somehow believe that the only way forward is going backwards: where hiring decisions are based solely on race, where justice is only for those with the right opinions, where streets are a luxury only for the elite.”
This idea that Democrats are retrograde and prejudiced has been pervasive here, not just in Junior’s speech. It’s a bit disorienting, because again I go back to the actual Republican platform, which is all about taking America backward. This is especially true around abortion, a word I have not heard uttered once inside the convention hall.
So I think what we are not hearing is just as important as what we are.
But I’ll end with this: Don Jr.’s eldest daughter, Kai Trump, 17, made a very touching speech as well. It was her first time on a stage and she was terrific. She spoke about a grandpa who is “caring and loving” and “gives us candy and soda when our parents aren’t looking.”
She deserves a shout-out for being poised and genuine.
Republicans have spent the week at their national convention calling for unity and inclusion in televised speeches. But on the ground in Milwaukee, the vibe isn’t quite so comforting and the turn toward Christian nationalism is complete.
Barabak: Agreed. And it’s striking how much Trump, who has never much cared about showing his softer side — quite the opposite — has used this convention to let family members wrap him in their warm and fuzzies.
In so many ways this convention has been a split-screen experience, depending whether you tuned in gavel to gavel or watched just the hour or so the major TV networks aired in prime time.
When it was just friends and compatriots, speakers let their id run wild, with all sorts of jokes about pronouns, attacks on senile Joe and kooky Kamala (her name purposely mispronounced), calls for mass deportation and other heat-seeking rhetoric that fires MAGA hearts.
Then it’s been rainbows and lollipops once the rest of America tuned in.
That, as you noted, changed when Junior showed up just ahead of Mr. and Mrs. Vance.
“We won’t ever forget the lies from left-wing politicians [and] from their allies in the media,” Trump said, not sounding very unifying.
“Who is actually running the country, anyway?” he demanded. “It’s obviously not Joe Biden. Is it Jill? Is it Hunter? Is it Barack Obama?” (Loud jeers filled the convention hall.)
“Maybe it’s the ghost of Corn Pop,” he taunted, alluding to a story Biden has often told about confronting a bad dude in his youth.
That got big laughs from those in the know, but probably made the other 99% of Americans say, “Huh?”
Chabria: I’ll admit, I had to Google that one — I’ll save everyone else the trouble. It’s a reference to a supposed gang member Biden met in his youth, a story some find problematic on its own for its depiction of race.
But aside from the big-name tickets, there were moments in two earlier speeches that gave me pause.
First, Thomas Homan, Trump’s acting immigration policy chief for a while, gave a frightening speech on deportation. He called our current policies “national suicide” and warned undocumented people, “you’d better start packing now.”
This in a hall filled with preprinted signs — in red, white and blue, naturally — calling for “Mass Deportations NOW!”
It’s rumored that Trump might bring Homan back in a second administration. I just can’t stress enough that this plan to break apart families — even ones who have broken no laws and been here for years or even decades — is a centerpiece of Trump’s agenda.
I don’t believe it is just talk, and anyone who has family, friends or community that would be harmed needs to take it seriously.
The second moment I want to note came when one of the “everyday Americans” on the agenda, petroleum engineer Sarah Phillips, took the stage. She spoke about the need to bring back domestic oil production (which is actually booming).
The crowd broke out in a chant of “Drill, baby, drill,” an oldie going back to Sarah Palin days. This is not a crowd that believes in climate change. A second Trump term will almost certainly do away with most if not all government action on that front.
Any other speakers catch your attention?
Barabak: We’d be remiss not to mention Peter Navarro.
He of the long, strange journey: from environmentalist candidate for San Diego mayor, Pete Wilson critic (he accused him of demagoguing the immigration issue for political gain) and Clinton acolyte (Navarro spoke at the 1996 Democratic National Convention) to Trump administration trade advisor and, most recently, jailbird.
Fresh from four months in federal prison, Navarro arrived on stage to a long and lusty ovation. He was knee-deep in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, even laying out a road map for the steal, and was jailed for ignoring a congressional subpoena. (The courts rejected his made-up claim of executive privilege).
On Wednesday night, the chameleon-like Navarro took on a new role: political martyr.
“I went to prison so you won’t have to,” he declared, in a weird, highly caffeinated surfer patois. “I am your wake-up call.”
“The J6 committee demanded that I betray Donald John Trump to save my own skin,” he went on. “I refused.”
Navarro issued a stark warning: “If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, be careful. They will come for you!”
Which is certainly true if you ever help plot an attempted coup seeking to overturn a free and fair election in these United States.
But the night wasn’t all snark and pity-party, was it?
Chabria: No, it wasn’t. The moment I found especially poignant was when Gold Star families were honored. These were the loved ones of the 13 soldiers killed at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport during the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021.
Though it was Trump who signed the agreement to remove all troops from Afghanistan in 2020, he had left office by the deadline to do so, leaving the logistics to Biden. The Biden withdrawal was chaotic and left behind many Afghan people who had helped the United States. Many of those who did reach the U.S, are stuck in an immigration morass.
So there is fair reason for criticism and anger, though Biden has met with many of the families who lost loved ones, despite reports to the contrary.
The families on stage Wednesday night were angry, but more than that, heartbroken.
Their grief was palpable — especially as Alicia and Herman Lopez, who lost their son Marine Cpl. Herman Lopez, read aloud the names of the fallen. The crowd chanted the names back and I think everyone watching honored the sacrifice and felt the pain.
Barabak: It was incredibly moving and a somber reminder that our politics, and the actions of our elected leaders, have real flesh-and-blood consequences.
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