Monday was the first night of the RNC, and it was certainly something. Most of the speakers dedicated a sizable portion of their time on stage to heaping praise onto the current president, Donald Trump. The banner over the stage read “Trump 2020,” and below that, almost as an afterthought, “The GOP Convention.”
Like all political events, it featured quite a bit of bizarre claims and dubious affirmations. However, more than the DNC last week, the RNC seemed like a rally for exactly one person: Donald Trump. Rather than being a reaffirmation of Republicans’ policy goals, it often came across as a way to applaud a deeply unpopular president. Here are some of the key takeaways from the first night of the event and its unusual proceedings.
It’s not a secret that Trump likes hearing his own name, and he really likes when folks shower him in compliments. In fact, some would argue that Trump demands and expects such obsequiousness. As president, Trump has repeatedly shown that reporters that flatter him get to ask him questions, but he’ll silence and even ignore those who challenge him.
This was on full display during the RNC. The handful of speakers that were on stage Monday night offered little in the way of policy discussion or concrete details of ongoing governance. Instead, they championed Trump as the “defender of Western civilization,” called him a “visionary” and even “the greatest president of [our] lifetime”.
It is unclear at this point in the electoral cycle what it is the Republicans stand for. Under Obama, Republicans played the role of obstructionists who wanted to champion people buying stocks and owning companies. They loudly decried any attempts to increase the power of the president. They also stubbornly blocked most of Obama’s chief administrative priorities.
Meanwhile, under Trump, Republicans have seemed unable or unwilling to come together on a cohesive vision of governance. Their eight years of playing “block the bill” seem to have rendered them unsure of how to back policy. Trump’s chief administrative goals going into office were to kickstart American manufacturing and to build a border wall.
The wall-less Southern border and the cratered economy speak to a lack of initiative regarding these promises. In truth, Trump’s succeeded in one critical place: two Supreme Court justices and countless federal judges have been appointed by a Republican-controlled government.
Republicans’ focus on the courts speaks to the few policy goals they agree on party-wide. Revoking the right to abortion, expanding gun rights and “law-and-order” policing are some of the key touchstones of the Republican party in 2020. However, beyond these broad, culture-based goals, it’s unclear what Republicans stand for. That alone was the biggest takeaway from night one of the RNC.
