22 United States The EconomistAugust 29th 2020
W
hen donald trumpappeared at the 2016 Republican Na-
tional Convention in Cleveland, the party’s establishment
was still shell-shocked by his nomination. Yet its politico, donor
and lobbyist members consoled themselves with the thought that,
given his probable loss to Hillary Clinton, they would soon have a
chance to reunify their party in furious opposition, and reclaim it.
While a few senior Republicans—including the governor of Ohio,
John Kasich—condemned Mr Trump, most merely gave the con-
vention a miss. Mr Trump’s main defeated rival, Senator Ted Cruz,
addressed the gathering but did not endorse him. Seemingly by de-
fault, Mr Trump filled the vacuum with a cast of relatives, hyper-
partisans and sycophantic opportunists.
Four years on, it turns out that that wasn’t by default. Half of
this week’s rncheadliners were named Trump (including the
president’s four adult children, wife and daughter-in-law). And
though other members of the 2016 crew were unavailable, their re-
placements hit the same notes of hysterical fear and adulation. In
place of Mike Flynn and Chris Collins, two prominent cheerlead-
ers since convicted of crimes, Mr Trump employed attack-dogs
such as Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Floridian mini-Trump—who
warned viewers that Democrats “will disarm you, empty the pri-
sons, lock you in your home and invite ms-13 to live next door.”
Deputising for Jerry Falwell junior, the president’s main evan-
gelical fan in Cleveland, now mired in scandals (including an alle-
gation that he enjoyed watching his wife have sex with a young
boyfriend), Mr Trump had members of Billy Graham’s family laud
him as a “fierce advocate” of faith. No opportunist has spoken for
the president with more cynical zest than his eldest son’s girl-
friend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Fox News presenter turned well-paid
Trumpist megaphone, did this week. “The Best! Is Yet! To Come!”
she yelled to an empty room. Mr Trump’s political showmanship is
unchanged. Yet his standing within his party is transformed.
When he declared in Cleveland that America was half-de-
stroyed and “I alone can fix it”, even many Republicans were non-
plussed. Less than half had voted for him in their presidential pri-
maries. Now almost all approve of him, many reverently, as the
personality cult he launched in Ohio has subsumed the party.
Instead of unveiling a policy platform, as is customary, the Re-publicanNationalCommitteeset independent thought aside this
week and resolved to “support the president’s America First agen-
da”. Yet, halfway through the convention, it was harder than ever to
fathom what that means. The only logic to the policies highlighted
was tactical. To reassure the dwindling centre-right, one segment
featured Mr Trump, the most anti-immigration (legal and illegal)
president of modern times, praising hardworking immigrants at a
naturalisation ceremony. Several speakers, while tumbling over
each other to praise his achievements, also gave contradictory ac-
counts of what they were. Senator Rand Paul lauded his opposition
to “endless wars”; Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, praised his
sabre-rattling against Iran; Eric Trump claimed he had brought
peace to the Middle East.
In contrast to Cleveland, a willingness to lacquer Mr Trump
with praise was a condition for being allowed to speak—as demon-
strated by former critics such as Nikki Haley, even though, when
she was his ambassador to the un, she observed the president be-
ing laughed at by world leaders. Yet the unfeigned reverence ex-
pressed for him by the many ordinary folk showcased in the con-
vention was more unnerving. They included health-care workers
who gave thanks for his management of a pandemic predicted to
claim a quarter of a million American lives by the election.
Besides seeming profoundly un-American in its tone, such ad-
ulation represents the triumph of a four-year propaganda cam-
paign that abandoned objective truth on day one and the normal
limits of partisan self-promotion shortly afterwards. Its current it-
eration, to which the convention was largely dedicated, insists
that Mr Trump inherited an economy on the brink of collapse, pro-
ceeded to build the “greatest economy our country has ever seen”,
was unfairly assailed by the “China virus”, but is now in the process
of making more American greatness, which Joe Biden would turn
to ashes overnight. Fact-checkers identified more lies on the Re-
publican convention’s first night than throughout last week’s
Democratic one. In the midst of the worst plague in a century,
worst social unrest in decades and one of the worst economic cri-
ses in the country’s history, three in four Republicans claim to be-
lieve America is in better shape now than it was four years ago.
As that should suggest, the Republican Party is not the only in-
stitution that has failed to check Mr Trump. The media have also
succumbed. Conservative outlets have embraced his alternative
facts. Left-leaning ones have uncovered them—yet their increas-
ingly frenzied opposition to the president has fed the grievance
culture that insulates his supporters from reality.System failure
The law and constitution have similarly trimmed the president’s
excesses at best. Defended by an unprincipled attorney-general,
Bill Barr, and a supine party, Mr Trump has faced no censure for his
many abuses, including his alleged obstruction of investigations
into Russia’s hand in his election and efforts to wring political fa-
vours from foreign leaders. His impeachment trial, in long-ago
January, was hardly mentioned in either convention. He will pre-
sumably face no sanction for his additional transgressions this
week, in using the White House and other government offices as
campaign props, which the law forbids.
The big question, of course, is whether a majority of American
voters will hold the line against Mr Trump. He currently trails Mr
Biden by a decent margin. Yet in the context of the dishonesty, nar-
cissism, contempt for office and incuriosity about the miseries
facing millions he displayed this week, it is not wide enough. 7Lexington Hail to the king
The Republicans’ national convention underlines how much they prefer the president to reality