When future historians of our current period come to view American politics, the one overarching question that will likely dominate their inquiry will be some variation of “How did the Republican party wind up here?”

Why did its elected representatives and a consistent section of its supporters end up voluntarily abandoning much of what the party had previously stood for in order to enable the rise of a limited man who used the communications technology of the day to project values far-removed from any the party traditionally thought of itself as representing; all the while using fear to control internal dissent as he dismantled its belief system in favor of meaningless slogans.

In a piece entitled ‘The Grand Old Meltdown’ Tim Alberta writes at Politico: “Donald Trump’s party is the very definition of a cult of personality. It stands for no special ideal. It possesses no organizing principle. It represents no detailed vision for governing. Filling the vacuum is a lazy, identity-based populism that draws from the lowest common denominator. If it agitates the base, if it lights up a Fox News chyron, if it serves to alienate sturdy real Americans from delicate coastal elites, then it’s got a place in the Grand Old Party.”

How did the party of Ronald Reagan allow itself to become identified as a craven, venal mob driven by misogyny and racism, bearing little more of a philosophical standard than “owning the Libs”? And how did the party of Abraham Lincoln come to be ripped apart almost daily by an organization named for him and with his face as its logo? 

Certainly, political parties across the globe evolve, even to the point of a messy extinction, and those future historians will doubtless come up with some plausible context for the Republicans’ recent trajectory; linking its two election defeats at the hands of Barack Obama, the angry impotence of the Tea Party and the ultimate realization that the nation’s demographics were against them.

Was a schism or cleansing within the GOP necessary to find its new calling, they will ask, or did the party made in the image of Donald Trump represent the last, paranoid death throes, not just of the GOP, but of America’s political order as we understand it, ushering in an era of apathy and disillusion with the democratic process itself?

Perhaps those questions and others can only be answered with the benefit of hindsight, but beginning tonight we at least get a glimpse of what will be one of the key events in tracing that evolution, as the Republican National Convention gets under way, ostensibly headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, amid the uncertain chaos of a global pandemic and economic destruction unprecedented in our lifetime.

As CNN reported, “It would not be a surprise if Trump’s convention offers Americans a highly optimistic and inaccurate picture of the worst public health crisis in a century. Fueling fresh fears of political interference in clinical science, Trump on Sunday held a big pre-convention announcement to hail the US Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization to endorse the treatment of convalescent plasma for Covid-19 patients… Trump has also predicted a vaccine – which aides believe could improve his hopes of a second term – will be available by or soon after Election Day, a far more optimistic projection than the timeline of most scientists and pharmaceutical experts.”

While much of the four days of proceedings will be held virtually, Charlotte – the original site of the event, to which it returned after a move to Jacksonville, Florida was abandoned following a Covid-19 spike – will manage the necessary business, such as this evening’s formal tallying of the delegate votes to re-nominate Donald Trump and vice-president Mike Pence.

Other events will be held elsewhere, such as Pence’s speech on Wednesday night from historic Fort McHenry in Baltimore, a National Park Service property requiring special permission which was, of course, granted.

Trump himself, predictably since the pandemic has limited opportunities for the political rallies on which he thrives, is scheduled to speak in prime time each of the four nights as he grasps for a campaign reboot, culminating in an address from the White House lawn on Thursday when he will accept the party’s re-nomination – an ostentatious staging criticized by ethics experts as breaking usual norms, as if anyone cared about things like norms any more.

The schedule of convention speakers firmly cements the split with the Republican party of the past. While plenty of potential contenders for the job in 2024 will line up to bash China, the only living former GOP president, George W Bush, will not be contributing. 

Each night will feature at least one member of Trump’s own family. According to James Hohmann at the Washington Post: “Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, are scheduled to appear on Monday night. First lady Melania Trump, as well as Eric and Tiffany Trump, will headline Tuesday. Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, who is paid for her work on the campaign, will speak Wednesday. Ivanka Trump, who works in the White House as a senior adviser alongside her husband, will introduce her dad Thursday night.”

“This week will very much be a Trump family affair,” Hohmann writes, “reflecting the degree to which the president has remade the GOP in his image since his hostile takeover of the party four years ago.”

But as Ed Luce of the FT reminds us in a Twitter thread: “This is the Trump show not the RNC. But the roster offers a guide to the nativists, nasty types, nincompoops and nihilists who enable him… These coming four nights will be America’s Leni Reifenstahl test – the director who glamorized Hitler. A collection of thugs, idiots, sycophants and neo-fascists will try to convince that Trump is God’s plan for America. It will offer a case study in how dark personality cult has destroyed a party and can destroy a republic if it’s allowed. Today’s Republicans represent the fallen angels of America’s dark side. It’s not the party of Abraham Lincoln. They reject modernity & profit by a house divided that in their care would ultimately topple.”

While there is an apparently hastily-compiled agenda for the second term, featuring 50 bullet points “building on the incredible achievements” of the first four years, there will be no formal party platform beyond basically “enthusiastically supporting President Trump.” 

The move, with its echoes of Pyongyang, was condemned by Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations thus: “The decision not to produce or publish a Republican platform is a sad and troubling development. Elections are meant to provide choices in visions and policies as well as people. As Jefferson noted, democracy requires its citizen voters be informed, and this move undermines just that.”

Are conventions dead?

When the DNC largely successfully staged the first virtual party conference last week there were moments when it had the feeling of being more of an NPR fundraising drive, but they had a huge audience tune in; just not, it seemed, on TV.

The empty space and general lack of human interaction probably gave the moment more gravitas – it had less the feel of a rally, more of a fireside chat, and that definitely worked to the advantage of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, whose acceptance speech was widely praised as an effective message of inclusion, humility and empathy. Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote that Biden “captured the romance of decency.”

“There was hardly a word in the speech,” Gerson writes, “that could not have been given by a mainstream Republican senator a decade ago. 

But The Daily Show perhaps put it best in this brilliant parody campaign spot, “Joe Biden: Acceptable Under The Circumstances.”

While Biden struck a chord in addressing the division within the country, summoning the pervasive contrast of “light and dark,” the contrast between the two conventions over this coming week will likely be the starkest ever. 

The president will likely take his usual turn to a Seinfeld-esque “airing of grievances” and emphasise again his ironic personal mistrust of voting by mail. (Given Trump’s constant undermining of the integrity of the US mail, it was even more ironic, perhaps, that Trump’s former campaign manager and mastermind of his 2016 victory Steve Bannon was arrested last week by Postal Service enforcement agents.)

With the race expected to tighten in the final weeks, as races invariably do, if Donald Trump genuinely believed he can win, it’s unlikely he would be seeking to undermine the voting process, emphasizing every time he gets a public opportunity that “the only way we’re going to lose is if the election is rigged.” Yet to some extent he appears to have already succeeded, with polls showing nearly half the public have at least some disquiet about the reliability of the mail-in process.

Almost everything this administration is doing is in plain sight and more is surely to come before November 3rd. This week we’ll get to see them celebrate it in a way only they can.

On Friday, the day after Trump accepts the re-nomination at the White House, with apparently a fireworks display on the national mall, thousands of people are expected to attend a March on Washington on the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” gathering. This year’s rallying cry is “Get off our necks.”

Meanwhile, if political activism and single-issue campaigning are thriving, are political conventions dead? Maybe. It might make more sense to wonder about the health of our parties. In an excellent article for Politico, Zachary Karabell writes: “The parties killed the convention before the pandemic. Now they have a chance to reinvent it… The conventions were once a pulsating forum for democracy in action. They haven’t been that for many years, but for the first time in decades, having reached a nadir, they might be again.”

We’ll see this week whether that might just be wishful thinking.

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You can watch proceedings at the Republican Convention live on C-Span here.

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