I arrived on Sunday afternoon, having caught a ride from Madison. I am in Milwaukee, for at least a couple of days, to attend the Republican National Convention. I don’t want to be here. It’s brutally hot and punishingly humid. Torrential downpours are in the forecast. And the thought of sharing an enclosed space with tens of thousands of ardent supporters of Donald Trump is about as distressing to me as having wild boars eat my face.
Moreover, the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday in Pennsylvania has cast a pall over the proceedings. What had been shaping up to be a coronation will instead be a canonization—the elevation of the foul-mouthed, mean-spirited, criminally inclined Trump to sainthood.
Republicans are, of course, already blaming Democrats for this despicable shooting, though I have never heard any member of the party or any pundits on the left call for violence against Donald Trump, even as he has repeatedly called for violence against his political opponents. The media will, of course, be demonized; I can’t lose the image of the man in a red shirt giving the finger to the cameras and shouting “Fuck you!” as the Secret Service ushered the wounded former President into a vehicle. Someone in the crowd began shouting at the press, “This is your fault.”
Security for the convention, which will entail bringing in some 4,000 law enforcement officers and about 1,000 private security personnel, will be cranked up to eleven. But, incredibly, even after Saturday’s shooting, firearms including assault rifles are still allowed in areas immediately outside the RNC security perimeter, because a state law prevents the city from enacting such a ban. I wish I were making this up.
More than 50,000 people are expected to attend the four-day event, mercifully not all at once; the Fiserv Forum where the convention is centered holds about 18,000 people. These include about 2,400 delegates. The rest are party leaders and apparatchiks. Many others are elected officials. They have come here to celebrate Trump’s third nomination. The bars will remain open each night till 4 a.m.
The Republicans at this convention are united by their leader; they have stood by him through every scandal and every fresh demonstration of his unfitness. They stood by him after the Access Hollywood tape, after the Muslim ban, after he separated migrant children from their families, after his horrific bungling of the pandemic, after he instigated a mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, after his two impeachments, and after he was found guilty of sexual abuse, fined $355 million for civic fraud, and convicted of thirty-four felonies with three prosecutions pending. They stood by him through all this, despite his obvious signs of cognitive impairment, equal to or greater than that of Joe Biden.
And if Trump should lose the election (again) and insist that he won (again), this time with perhaps a greater chance of success, the morally bankrupt Republican Party will stand by him still. It will enable him then as it has all along, as he seizes power, this time with vast new protections for his habitually criminal behavior. Thanks a lot, Supreme Court.
Although the attempt on Trump’s life will color the convention, it remains highly unlikely that anything of any consequence will happen here. There will be speeches. There will be pomp. There will be constant lying and expressions of grievance, maybe even a few heartfelt words for the January 6 “hostages” and “patriots.” But there will be no dissent, no give-and-take, and nothing will be decided that has not already been decided.
We already know Trump’s pick for Vice President—whether it’s Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, Doug Burgum, or someone else—will be dreadful. The party’s platform has already been written; so has the blueprint for Trump’s second term—the Heritage Foundation document known as Project 2025.
The uncommonly brief party platform is titled “2024 GOP PLATFORM MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (lack of punctuation in original). It includes multiple other Trump-inspired typographical blasphemies, including “But now we are a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE,” “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent.” It calls for an end to “THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE MANDATE,” the immediate initiation of “THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY,” and the mothballing of the U.S. Department of Education in order to “bring Education in the United States to the highest level, one that it has never attained before!” Is that Trump talk, or what?
Joeff Davis
Bill Lueders at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Project 2025, from which Trump has tried, unsuccessfully, to distance himself (even though some of his close associates played a key role in its writing), goes even further. The 922-page document calls for a dramatic expansion of presidential power; the replacement of tens of thousands of civil servants with Trump loyalists; a sharp reduction in Medicaid funding; the removal of the abortion drug mifepristone from the market; and an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows “dreamers” to stay in the United States. The plan would also force the closure of LGBTQ+ health programs, forbid the use of the term “sexual orientation” in federal legislation, and outlaw pornography and throw those who produce it in prison. Good luck with that.
While there is still a chance, at least, that the Democratic National Convention in August will be an event of high drama over concerns about Biden’s age and health, the RNC is all wrapped up before it even begins. Trump’s coronation—er, canonization—is assured. There won’t even be any negotiation over Nikki Haley’s ninety-seven delegates, whom she “released” to Trump last week, getting nothing in return. Haley, whom Trump derisively nicknamed “Birdbrain,” was not even invited to speak at the convention, and will not attend. I wish I were so fortunate.
I am staying at the apartment of an old acquaintance, a local writer, actor, and performer named Seymour Muchmore, about a mile and a half from the convention. On Sunday afternoon, with the temperature pushing 90, we walked to the convention past the City Hall that appears in the opening credits of Laverne & Shirley, and past the statue of the Fonz, the character played by Henry Winkler on Happy Days.
The entire area around the convention center is cordoned off with steel barriers. We saw clump after clump of law enforcement officers standing and, in some cases, sitting together talking, with apparently nothing else to do. One security guard for the Fiserv told me he was told he needed to go some roundabout way to his destination, for no reason he could see.
We saw a sign outside a bar that proclaimed “Closed to Public,” and underneath, “FOX NEWS WELCOME.” As I passed a woman sitting in a chair staring at her phone, she excitedly beckoned me over to see the selfie she had just taken minutes earlier of herself and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who had walked past. “I’m not a fan of his,” she told me in a whisper, although no one else was near. I whispered back,“Neither am I.”
I met up with photographer Jeoff Davis, who had earlier picked up the press credentials for myself and others at The Progressive. The credentials themselves are a hoot: One, which must be displayed on a black lanyard, is a photo ID that identifies the wearer and the publication. Then there are separate passes for each of the conventions’ four days, which must be worn on a golden lanyard. These can be used to secure limited amounts of access to the convention floor.
Milwaukee is the city where I was born, where I lived until my mid-twenties, and where I still have family. It has strong neighborhoods, good parks, and lots of civic pride. It is not ostentatious. It is working class, majority Black and Latinx. It’s a decent place to live.
Like many people who have a soft spot in their heart for Milwaukee, I was angered to hear that Trump called it “a horrible city.” His disdain for the city was reflected in the fact that he originally did not even intend to stay here during the convention, booking accommodations in Chicago instead, until this too came to light, due to the efforts of the reporters whom he holds in such contempt.
But we’ll see. Who knows? Maybe it won’t be so bad.