'Quasi-religious figure': Republican faithful celebrate Trump's return
Trump rips up original speech, says near-death experience changed him
In the euphoric early hours of this week's Republican convention, one delegate suggested chiselling Donald Trump's likeness into America's ultimate secular shrine: Mount Rushmore.
Others looked beyond the secular.
To some participants in Milwaukee, Wisc., this convention has transcended the realm of earthly political gathering, into something imbued with religious significance.
It was their elated reaction to a split-second twist of fate over the weekend: an assassin's bullet barely missing the former U.S. president's skull, tearing across his ear, just two days before the convention started Monday.
So Trump stepped into a bath of adulation from thousands of party faithful, making his first public appearance since the shooting, arriving with a bandage over his right ear. Country singer Lee Greenwood sang God Bless the U.S.A., as Trump took his seat in the boisterous arena beside his just-named running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" attendees chanted, echoing the words Trump had uttered in the moment Secret Service agents whisked him away, streaks of blood across his face.
The convention was abuzz with talk of miracles. From the stage to the hallways, attendees spoke of Trump's survival as the product of a divine plan for America.
"There is so much more energy [here] now," said Zina Hackworth, an attendee from the St. Louis area.
"We actually see the hand of God has protected former president Trump."
One Republican had just left church, and drove around the convention site with a decidedly less holy message hoisted on a flag on his red truck: "F--k Biden."
"I believe that God wants Trump to bring the United States back to where it's supposed to be," said Craig Basile, a 62-year-old Wisconsin man, after Sunday mass.
Trump has also described his survival as miraculous.
'I'm supposed to be dead'
In his first interview after the shooting, he told the Washington Examiner he turned just the right amount, at just the right time, and credited it as incredible luck or an act of God: "I'm supposed to be dead. I'm not supposed to be here," he said.
He insists it will change him.
Trump said he's ripped up his original convention speech, which he called extremely partisan, "brutal" and a "humdinger," filled with rip-roaring attacks against the Biden administration and the Democrats.
"I can't say these things after what I've been through," Trump said, acknowledging that his political opponents include good people.
"I threw it out," he said of the speech. "I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it's true.
"Now, we have a speech that is more unifying."
This reflects the official message of his campaign: His senior staff has ordered the campaign team to keep the rhetoric cool.
One top campaign official even deleted a social media post blaming U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democrats for the shooting.
A number of other politicians — Democrats and Republicans alike — have been saying the heated political rhetoric in this country urgently needs some cooling.
Even Marjorie Taylor Greene weighed her words carefully as she took the stage to loud applause.
As the far-right congressional firebrand began speaking, spectators shouted, "Give 'em hell," but she started by thanking God for saving Trump, spoke of her hope for a better country, then reserved her customary scorn for transgender people, undocumented immigrants and politicians who fund Ukraine.
Trump's wife Melania issued an uncharacteristically lengthy statement, urging Americans to start seeing each other's humanity first, rather than partisan affiliation.
In name of 'unity,' forget Jan. 6: Trump
Will this talk of rhetorical conversion stick?
It faces tall odds. Trump himself has acknowledged that if his political opponents start attacking him, he might respond — and the moment of decency might prove ephemeral.
In fact, it's been immediately tested.
After a Florida judge tossed out his classified-documents case, Trump, in a social-media post Monday, proposed dismissing all other charges against him — in the name of national "unity."
This includes charges connected to his supporters' attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in his attempt to steal an election; Trump referred to it as the Jan. 6 "hoax."
The request struck his critics as a self-interested exploitation of the shooting; cloaking his affront to democracy, in an effort to heal it.
One protester at the convention site was livid at the news of the dropped documents charges Monday. She said the convicted criminal belongs nowhere near the White House again.
"I'm shaking right now," said Darlene Garms of Milwaukee. "He's divided this whole country."
On the other side of the political divide on Fox News, segment after segment blamed the Democrats and the media for hateful rhetoric around Trump.
A 'quasi-religious figure'
Prime-time host Jesse Watters blamed the media for likening Trump to a fascist. He did so in introducing his guest, Bill Barr, who happened to resign as Trump's attorney general in 2020 as Trump was trying to undo that year's U.S. election.
That unpleasant history did not come up.
Still, Barr said Democrats are overdoing it with the argument that American democracy will disappear if Trump wins.
"That is an apocalyptic and hysterical position that's bound to lead to violence," Barr said. "It's ridiculous. He's not the threat to democracy that they're portraying."
Another thing that did not come up on Fox News? Trump's constant use of similar language, saying things like, "If we don't win this election, we won't have a country left," or that the U.S. won't survive another four years of Biden.
Trump has also joked repeatedly about the bludgeoning attack in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home against her husband.
Maybe things are different now. We'll get a sense, perhaps, during this convention, where he will be celebrated for days, then speak Thursday.
"He has been made a quasi-religious figure for the party," said Kathleen Dolan, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
And maybe American politics won't change all that much.
Asked about the vulgar insult against Trump's opponent on his pickup truck, Basile, the Wisconsin man, replied that it's a clear message — to the point — and there's no shame in that flag.
"Best $25 I ever spent."
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With files from Katie Simpson and Sylvia Thomson