MILWAUKEE — Not four years after Donald Trump’s eldest son boasted that the Republican Party belonged not to traditional Republicans but to his father, GOP delegates gathered at their nominating convention proved his point this week, demonstrating their obeisance to a convicted criminal who tried to end American democracy because he lost his reelection.
“Tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States,” Trump said to wild cheers on Thursday night, exactly three years, five months and 28 days after leaving the White House in disgrace following his failed Hulk Hogan and lawyer Alina Habba, who may be best known for representing Trump in a lawsuit he lost against a woman who said Trump had raped her and repeatedly defamed her by lying about it. The penultimate speaker, the one who introduced Trump onstage, was ultimate fighting impresario Dana White, whose caught-on-camera physical abuse of his wife in the past would have made his presence impossible, but which in the new Republican Party scarcely warrants a mention.
“Eight years, two impeachments, four indictments, 34 felony convictions, and one attempted coup later, the GOP is now fully 100% Trump’s party,” said Joe Walsh, once a Republican congressman from Illinois who broke with Trump early in his presidency. “And that speaks less to Trump’s strength, and much more to Republican fear and cowardice.”
The views of Walsh, who tried running against Trump in the 2020 GOP primary but dropped out after the Iowa caucuses, were not at all reflective, though, of the tens of thousands of attendees drawn from pro-Trump activists across the country.
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Peter Quaglia, a former federal agent in the Department of Homeland Security, said none of the criminal cases against Trump bothers him, even the New York falsification of business records case on which Trump may be sentenced to prison in September. “I’m not even remotely concerned about it,” he said.
Carolyn Welsh, who is 80 and retired after serving five four-year terms as sheriff of Chester County in Pennsylvania, also does not see any of the criminal cases as a problem. “I have a shirt that says: I voted for the felon,” she said.
Two of the outstanding felony prosecutions against Trump are based on his coup attempt that culminated in Jan. 6 Capitol assault. On the day of the attack, at a rally just beforehand, Donald Trump Jr., who also spoke at this year’s Republican convention, declared his father’s mastery of the party.
“This gathering should send a message to them,” the younger Trump told tens of thousands of his father’s followers gathered near the White House, referring to “weak” Republicans who had not agreed to help overturn his election loss. “This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party.”
This week, Trump’s top campaign adviser, Chris LaCivita, used nearly identical language in an interview with The New York Times. He explained why the campaign had essentially shut down the process of letting delegates draft the party’s platform, and instead presented one to them as a fait accompli:
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“What it says is that the Republican Party is Donald Trump’s party.”
