The 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) comes to a close on Thursday, with Donald Trump expected to accept the party’s nomination for president just after 9 PM ET.Heading into its fourth and final day, the Milwaukee, Wi.-hosted convention has been an eye-opening affair, showcasing just how much the face of the Republican party has changed over Trump’s near-decade as its leading figure.
Highlights of the convention thus far have included a rousing, pro-worker speech from the president of the Teamsters union, a jaunty primetime address from a top-grossing OnlyFans model and the recitation of a Sikh prayer to close out day one on Monday.
A time traveler from the B.T. (Before Trump) times would no doubt have mistaken the affair for the rival Democratic National Convention — at least if it weren’t for the plethora of red hats on display in the crowd.
This certainly isn’t your father’s GOP.
Above all, the RNC’s multifarious lineup of speakers reflects a broad rejection of the class-driven and colour-coded brand of identity politics long favoured by the Democratic party. Americans from all walks of life are finding haven from the excesses of “woke” culture under Trump’s big red tent.
“The left told me to hate Trump,” recalled model and influencer Amber Rose during her primetime speech on Monday. “And even worse, to hate the other side, the people who support him.”
Rose, who is biracial, told the audience that she was at first hoodwinked by the “left-wing propaganda” that Trump and his followers were racist. However, after reaching out to Trump voters at the urging of her father (a Trumper himself), she says she soon saw the error of her ways.
“I realized Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re black, white, gay or straight. It’s all love,” said Rose to a spirited round of applause. “So I let go of my fear of… getting attacked by the left and I put the red hat on too.”
2024 Republican primary candidate and rising conservative star Vivek Ramaswamy trod similar terrain in his remarks on night two, calling for an end to identity-based divisions and the restoration of a colourblind American meritocracy.
“We can still be a nation in our ascent,” Ramaswamy implored convention-goers. “(A) country where no matter who you are… or how long your last name is, that you will still get ahead in this country with your own hard work(.)”
Ramaswamy’s cheeky reference to his own nine-letter surname earned him a smattering of laughter.
Not too long ago seen as a party that catered principally to America’s shrinking core of white, middle-class Protestants, the Republican party has, paradoxically, widened its tent substantially under the often politically incorrect Trump. This despite the frequent conniptions from left-wing media outlets over Trump’s history of making culturally insensitive remarks and alleged footsie-playing with white nationalists.
The broadening of the Republican party’s appeal beyond its traditional base was, in fact, one of the more underreported developments of Trump’s four years as president.
Buried under the headlines of the messy 2020 presidential election were sizeable gains the Trump campaign made with both black and Latino voters. Trump had a notably strong showing among black men, likely a reflection of meaningful steps he took as president to curb mass incarceration.
Then-president Trump also made inroads with long-ignored Indian Americans prior to the 2020 election, notably appearing with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a 2019 rally in Houston, Tx. attended by an estimated 50,000 people. These efforts now look to be bearing fruit, with polls showing Indian voters rethinking their longtime support for the Democratic party.
Not coincidentally, the representation of Indian Americans within the Republican party has grown tremendously under Trump’s watch, with players like Ramaswamy and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley moving to the party’s upper echelons. (Trump brought Haley to the national stage by naming her his Ambassador to the UN in late 2016.) Indian American political operative Kash Patel has been identified as one of the Trump Republicans’ most influential behind-the-scenes figures.
Trump, a self-styled “blue-collar billionaire”, has impressively transcended economic classes as a political figure, earning a level of support amongst union households not seen by any Republican political figure since Ronald Reagan. Labour union members were indispensable in Trump’s breaching of the Democratic party’s electoral firewall in the so-called “Rust Belt” states of the Midwest and Northeast.
There is arguably no one who better represents the Republican party’s fast-changing demographics than J.D. Vance: the man Trump named his running mate at the start of the week. Vance, the first millennial to join a major party ticket, is nearly impossible to put into a box.
Born into a struggling union family in southwestern Ohio, Vance would chart an improbable journey to the Ivy Leagues, and later Silicon Valley. (The details of Vance’s hardscrabble upbringing are laid out in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” later adapted to a star-studded Hollywood movie.) Along the way, he would strike up a relationship with first generation Indian-American Usha Chilukuri (now Usha Vance), with whom he now raises three children in an interfaith household.
To make things even more vexing for those who would pigeonhole him, Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019. Much to the chagrin of race-baiters everywhere, he counts Afro-Canadian Jamil Jivani, now a rookie Member of Parliament, as one of his best friends.
Vance leaned into his unconventional political biography in his Wednesday night primetime address, telling the audience, “Never, in my wildest imagination, could I have believed that I would be standing here (on the RNC stage) tonight.”
The most human segment of Vance’s 35-minute address came when he disclosed that his formerly drug-addicted mother, who was in attendance, had been “clean and sober” for 10 years, leading the crowd to serenade her with the chant, “JD’s mom! JD’s mom!” The emotional moment no doubt resonated with millions of Americans, of all political viewpoints, who’ve seen family members struggle with addiction amidst a years-long opioid crisis.
Much like Vance himself, the coalition that has coalesced around Donald Trump defies easy characterization. As the RNC rolls on, we’re seeing nothing less than a realignment of the Republican party’s base of support as Americans from all backgrounds unite to usher in one nation under Trump.
National Post