CNN
—
Donald Trump has gone from insurrection to resurgence.
The poignant images of a nation in dystopian decline that have defined the former president’s politics were largely absent on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.
Instead, there was a sense of God’s presence — a strong belief among thousands of Republican delegates that a miracle had occurred and a sense that God had saved their hero after he nearly lost his life in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
On Monday night in Milwaukee, thousands of Trump supporters praised their leader, elevating him from MAGA superhero to saint-like status.
With a white bandage around his injured right ear, Trump stood beneath the bleachers at the Milwaukee Bucks’ NBA arena, like a heavyweight boxer waiting to step into the ring for a championship bout. Suddenly, his face appeared on the giant screen, and the crowd erupted in cheers. In a moment of political excitement, Trump pumped his fist and slowly made his way up to the VIP box to greet the newly appointed vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. Trump did not speak to the crowd, but he repeatedly said “thank you.”
Typically, Trump’s face is one of anger, indignation and sarcasm. But on Monday night, a different emotion was apparent. Tears appeared to well up in his eyes. A man who usually exudes strength and dominance in every room he walks into, this day displayed a touch of pensiveness and vulnerability, perhaps befitting someone coming to terms with how good fortune and a smart head saved his life.
Trump’s supporters have long viewed him as a god-like figure, and his own campaign has used the metaphor in ads. He has cast himself as a secular prophet leading a populist movement. For Trump’s millions of American fans, Monday night was a vindication of their faith in God and the former president, and the legitimacy of his mission.
“The devil came to Pennsylvania Saturday with his rifle, but the American Lion rose up and roared!” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, in a preacher-like tone, one of many speakers who argued that God saved Trump and therefore he can save America.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem also sanctified the former president, who had come face to face with death. “I already knew President Donald Trump was a fighter. He’s the toughest man I’ve ever met,” she said. “No one has endured more than he has. They attacked his reputation, they impeached him, they tried to bankrupt him, they wrongfully prosecuted him. But even in the most dangerous moments this week, his instinct was to stand up and fight.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, one of the few speakers to deviate from a message of unity, said she was “thankful that God has reached out to President Trump.”
The former president’s escape spared the country another horrific political tragedy in its history.
But while some voters see Trump as a messianic figure, others see him as a cult. Some see him as an inspiration, others as a seditious ideology. The worship of Trump as a kind of quasi-religious figure should provoke deep fears, given that he makes no secret of his authoritarian tendencies and his desire to exact revenge against his enemies if elected to a second term. This threat has taken on new meaning following the recent Supreme Court decision that expanded presidential immunity.
This inextricable national estrangement over the 45th president is emblematic of America’s deepening political divisions and means that calls for unity and calmer political rhetoric, while welcome, are unlikely to last in the long term.
After all, Trump’s triumphant appearance at the Republican Convention on the day he was chosen as the nominee meant he publicly endorsed a man who sought to subvert American democracy in order to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. This is the same man who rallied a mob to Washington on January 6, 2021, told his supporters to “fight like hell,” and then broke into the U.S. Capitol, punching police officers and trying to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
These contradictory and conflicting views of Trump are one of the reasons why many Americans find it difficult to believe his promises to work to heal a divided nation.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Sunday, the former president claimed he had changed his perspective after surviving the shooting, and suggested he would stop using political tactics to stoke social, cultural and racial divisions. “This is an opportunity to bring the whole country and even the whole world together,” he said.
During his administration, critics repeatedly declared that Trump had changed and “turned” president during moments of national emergency, but the former president did more than anyone to stoke a toxic political culture that is more intense than at any time since the 1960s and which many political leaders blame for Saturday’s assassination attempt and other political violence.
Voters may be more willing to listen to Trump’s more moderate rhetoric until he disproves it, given the horrific events in Pennsylvania, where Trump survived but one rally attendee, a father, fisherman and firefighter, Corey Comperatore, was killed shielding his family.
Nearly every Republican speaker got the memo Monday: Instead of Trump’s usual portrayal of a nation under siege by rampant crime, encroaching immigrants and far-left ideology, the prime-time picture was one of unity and inclusion. A slate of Black Republicans and Republican women spoke, giving the somewhat misleading impression that the GOP has a deep and diverse roster of lawmakers.
One Republican source said the convention’s speechwriters had tossed out all the pre-prepared scripts for this week’s top speakers and started over from scratch. Only Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sounded a cacophony as his old speech was loaded onto the teleprompter, blasting, “Today’s Democratic agenda is a clear and present threat to America, our institutions, our values and our people.”
But there have been earlier signs that the Republican Party’s new, brighter face after Trump’s assassination could only go so far.
The president’s selection of Vance elevated the status of one of MAGA rhetoric’s most ardent advocates. The Ohio senator responded with one of the most contradictory statements in the aftermath of Saturday’s shootings, at a time when politicians from all walks of life were trying to calm a traumatized nation. “A central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote on X. “That rhetoric led directly to the assassination attempt on President Trump.”
Assassination attempt aside, Trump went into the convention riding high, leading in most opinion polls, positioned well in battleground states and benefiting from the fallout from Biden’s dismal debate performance last month.
He scored another landmark victory when Florida Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents lawsuit on Monday, a move that cemented the new reality that, barring a conviction in a hush-money trial in New York, the former president may never be held accountable for his numerous alleged violations of the rule of law.
The response from Trump and his allies has been as misleading, stoking anger and damaging as ever to a vital institution of democratic accountability.
“As we move forward toward national unity after the horrific events of Saturday, the dismissal of this lawless indictment in Florida should only be the first step, followed shortly thereafter by the dismissal of all witch hunts, including the Jan. 6th hoax in Washington, DC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The Democratic Department of Justice has orchestrated all of these political attacks, an election interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s political opponent, the ME.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, one of Trump’s leading allies in Congress, accused the Justice Department of trying to “rip the Constitution to shreds.”
The remarks reflected a view among some Republicans that the country cannot be united unless Trump is given free reign, protected from any criminal liability for his actions.
So while Trump promises change and new attitudes, old habits die hard.
After the assassination attempt, the former president has a new chance in politics and in life, and this week it will become clear how he will take advantage of it.
