The Republican National Convention and the Iconography of Triumph (2024)

If you head due east from Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Route 59, making for Milwaukee, there are customs to be observed along the way. Be sure to bow your head in homage as you pass through the suburb of West Allis, for it is the birthplace of Liberace. Once in the city, hang a hard left onto South Sixth Street and gun your engine as you approach the Harley-Davidson Museum. A straight run will take you over the Menomonee River. Resist the temptation to swing right for a view of the Bronze Fonz, a perky yet not entirely convincing statue of Henry Winkler, thumbs erect for all eternity. Continue your northward quest. It will bring you to the Fiserv Forum, the home of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Last Halloween, the Fiserv Forum played host to Shania Twain, who, in a set lasting more than two hours, enraptured fans with songs such as “I’m Gonna Getcha Good,” “Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You),” and “Pretty Liar.” All part of her Queen of Me Tour, and, it could be said, a haunting premonition of the spectacle that descended from July 15th through 18th upon the same arena. For four days, in the broiling summer heat, the Republican National Convention came to Milwaukee. Close to the Fiserv Forum and the Wisconsin Cheese Mart, a sign in a storefront window reminded visitors that Milwaukee is the place “Where Curd Is King.” Not when Donald J.Trump is in town. If there was any evidence of a Curdish Separatist Movement, it was quickly suppressed. Forget the Queen of Me. It was time for the Emperor of Him.

Trump arrived on Sunday, July 14th, fresh from Pennsylvania, where he had been nicked by a gunman’s bullet the day before. The world may have been agog at that near-miss, replaying every wrinkle in the story, but the R.N.C. is not the world. It is a small, noisy universe unto itself, and what was extraordinary, as the first day of the Convention dawned, was the comprehensive lack of trauma. Neither within the cavernous space of the Fiserv Forum nor on the lips of the delegates and the guests as they flocked outside were the details of the attempted killing, let alone the motives of the shooter, the principal topics of discussion. It was as if some ancient prophecy had been fulfilled—as if the stalwarts of the Republican Party had expected not only that a heinous act would be committed against their champion but also that he would, being Trump, survive and rise. The Convention was always going to be a crowning. Now, however, thanks to his deliverance, it had swelled into something more. It was Easter.

In one minor respect, the resurrection of Trump diverged from Holy Scripture. Whereas Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene outside the empty tomb, Trump spoke to Bret Baier, of Fox News, on the phone. “He’s amazed that it happened. He understands he’s blessed to be where he is today,” Baier reported, adding, “He had a couple of posts on Truth Social that called for unity in the country. He expressed that he is going to make that a theme here in the Convention.” Unity in the country, not merely in the G.O.P.? Briefly, one had dim visions of young pro-Palestine activists pouring onto the stage of the Fiserv Forum and laying down their banners, the better to be enfolded within the embrace of a contritely sobbing Ted Cruz. Imagine Marjorie Taylor Greene on her knees, pleading for forgiveness from a drag queen. Truth Social would set us free.

This prospect of a beautiful truce was sustained by Melania Trump. Is it the case that she and her husband are now consciously uncoupled, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, or Thomas the Tank Engine and Clarabel? Ours not to inquire too deeply into private pacts. Whatever the case, the letter by Melania that was made public in the wake of the Pennsylvania shooting was nothing less than a prose poem. It urged us “to fight for a better life together, while we are here, in this earthly realm,” which presumably includes Wisconsin. “Dawn is here again,” Mrs. Trump asserted, like a druidess arriving at Stonehenge to greet the summer solstice. “Let us reunite. Now.” Bravest of all, in a surge of orthodox Lennonism, she informed us that “differing opinions, policy, and political games are inferior to love.”

Then the games began. On the approach to the Fiserv Forum, I walked and talked with Ashley Cash, a wife and mother from Lubbock, Texas, who was proud to wear her Republican heart on her sleeve—or, to be exact, on her resplendent red dress, on her loosely knotted Stars and Stripes scarf, and on the badges reading “God Bless America” and “Trump” that were pinned to her outfit, brightly spangled to match the cross around her neck. Cash was primed and ready to go. “The teachers’ unions and the school boards have a stranglehold on our education system, and they mostly lean toward the liberal side,” she said. In a similar vein, “Our news media is just like the propaganda of China, but it’s for the Democrat Party.” Cash harked back, approvingly, to the era of Walter Cronkite. “It was more true. He told us the facts, and everyone was able to make up their own mind, whereas now you’re being fed a narrative. Potentially by both sides, but it leans heavily, heavily left. And they protect Biden, and they protect the Democrats, and they go hard core after anyone who is a conservative,” she said. And what did she make of Biden himself? “His whole premise is to take from some to give to others. That’s total socialism, right?”

Two chords were struck in this conversation. First, there was not a hint of hostility in Cash’s demeanor, and the mood of the following days confirmed that media-pummelling, of the more brutish variety, has slipped out of vogue; if you want to get spat at, try the back of a Trump rally in 2016. Second, I would say that Cash, in her friendly fluency, rattled through more areas of Republican doctrine in five sunlit minutes than were addressed during any of the backside-numbing sessions in the Fiserv Forum, most of which lasted longer than four hours. There was no debate on education, for instance, the subject on which Cash had been most keen to expatiate; indeed, there were no debates at all. Instead, we got bullet points—dumdums, fired off with a loud report, and hitting the same few bull’s-eyes over and over again. Groceries and gas are too expensive; borders are porous; fentanyl and illegal immigrants, both of them lethal, are flowing into America; the nation has been enfeebled by Joe Biden; and Donald J.Trump is the savior of mankind. Oh, and one more thing: that middle initial is mandatory. JesusH. Christ, guys, get it right!

If you asked me what happened at the Republican National Convention, I would have to reply, “Nothing.” It was not a show about nothing, like “Seinfeld,” and there was no want of cacophony, but almost no shocks were delivered in either word or deed. The least surprising surprise was the arrival of Trump in the Fiserv Forum on Monday night—not to speak but to behold a portion of the evening’s proceedings and, more important, to be beheld. Even his fiercest detractors will concede that he is a maestro of the image, and of the means by which that image can most efficiently be burned into the public retina. Once he had evaded the Grim Reaper on Saturday, in Pennsylvania, it was inevitable that he would turn up in Wisconsin, two days later. Simply by making his presence known, and by keeping his silence, he said it all: “I will not be scythed.”

Trump took his seat in a peculiar tiered bank of low armchairs that faced the stage. That would be his appointed perch for Tuesday and Wednesday, too. A rectangle of white bandage covered his right ear. Sure enough, some of his admirers would soon be sporting similar patches. (I saw one enterprising guy with a miniature Stars and Stripes on his ear.) Who else could so swiftly engender a new tradition? Admit it: Trump is the embodiment of the American Meme. Occasionally, he stood to applaud, but most of the time he was pleased to wear an expression of froggy beatitude—a soft wide grin, ascending far above smugness to achieve a kind of gratified peace. Thus would a medieval liege lord have accepted obeisance from his vassals; all that was missing was the flicker of torchlight and the haunch of venison turning on its spit. At the risk of hyperbole, I would venture to say that Trump looked even more contented than the Bronze Fonz. Happy days.

The folks in the hall, of course, would argue that he was entitled to such joy. He had come to Milwaukee to be confirmed as the Presidential candidate of the G.O.P., and, lo, his work was done. The administrative business had largely been concluded midway through Monday, as the states were invited, one by one, to pledge their votes to the nominee of their choosing. This process had a certain awkward charm, as each announcer in turn seized the opportunity to advertise her or his particular chunk of America. Mississippi laid claim to “Elvis, Faulkner, and the best catfish in the entire world.” Oklahoma, apparently, is the first state “to have a President DonaldJ. Trump Highway.” (Extra marks for sucking up.) Louisiana, we learned, has “the lowest utility rates in the country.” It was stirring to be told that Alaska can boast “the largest moose” but disappointing to find that, for reasons of security, the Fiserv Forum would remain completely mooseless. How Bostonian Democrats will feel about hearing their home state described, on the floor of the Convention, as “the great commonwealth of Magachusetts” remains to be seen.