The Republican Convention

I didn't see what a lot of others did.

My personal view of the Republican National Convention.

First, I saw what seemed to me the final stages of what American political historians have called a “partisan realignment.” 

My old mentor and friend, Walter Dean Burnham, was the principal analytical mind that explored how the American political system has periodically resolved in this way deep social and economic crises, unaddressed by either of the two established parties, that threaten its Constitutional order.  

During such realignments disaffected groups and interests seize control of one of the two “normal” parties and a reorganization of political forces follows, with some interests and groups changing their traditional party allegiance.

Burnham’s understanding was that American society—valuing growth and positive change, open to both waves of internal migration and overseas immigration, and subject to the aggressive application of new technologies of transportation, communication and mechanization, assisted by large scale capital investments— inevitably created new groups and new demands for government action which were beyond the capacity of a fragmented, interest group managed, and Constitutionally constrained “normal” politics.

Such crises and perceived government failures were historically resolved by what Burnham and others referred to as a “peaceful” revolution, a fundamental reordering of the social basis of one or both of the two Parties and new leadership responsive to alienated citizens.  Some became passionate partisans and voters, finding a “party home” for the first time; others switched their party identification with the same intense new commitment. 

Burnham and others identified such “realigning” movements across American political history.  Politics during such periods were intense and partisan identities strongly felt.  And following each “realignment,” electoral politics settled into another longer period of stable voter loyalties, a new political system eventually “locked” into managing old conflicts and serving traditional established interests, leading to a new period of realignment. They have tended to occur in periods of 30 to 40 years. They relieve the pressure that was building up and with one exception avoid Civil War.

Over the course of the convention, especially the Vance acceptance speech, one could see the direction and group basis of a “new” Republican Party.  It would (will be?) part of a realignment that would outlive Trump.  And it would not, I think, become the party proposed by the intellectual elite responsible for the 2025 paper, or reflecting the indiscipline of the last Trump presidency.  It would be a workable coalition of interests supported by a new and loyal Party faithful.

These are guesses, of course, but it is what I saw and heard. These are contrarian ideas, I suppose, to most of the analyses you receive from the “talking heads.” But so, of course, was Burnham. He just ended up being right a lot of the time.

A second and related theme of the Convention was the remaking of Donald Trump.  Stable realigning settlements require symbolic reassurance and practical leadership. Trump is material for the first and not for the second.

Some may have seen the adulation crowning him as similar to what the President of South Korea expects, demands and receives.  In the American context, though, it seemed an attempt to assign Trump the role of symbolic Head of State.  One is safe in one’s home, community, and nation if an all-knowing, all-wise, and all-good, compassionate presence presides over us all. 

You say, we can’t put the fractured pieces of the real Trump together in this or any way.  That is not the project. It seemed to me, the party aimed to replace whatever Trump has become in fact, with a mythic figure, an agent, perhaps, of an even higher providence.   And as such, standing apart from the formal responsibilities of governing. The challenge to the new leadership and the Achilles’s heal of the whole project was whether Trump would follow the script.

All was going well until the final moments of the last part of the last day.  Trump didn’t just read his speech.  He went off on his usual campaign rant, half self-congratulatory and half completely detached from reality.  He transformed into the crazy uncle, always a bit frightening to the nephews.

The “choir,” so to speak, expects this and seems to have developed an ability to “consume” Trump without digestive failure. But at the convention he was speaking to a much wider audience.  What the faithful heard was not what the undecided, the “unenchanted” heard.  While the faithful remained enthralled, many of the rest of us were appalled.

I know his performance was not new and could have been expected. It was standard stump-speech Trump.  But to those practical technicians of the new Republican Party, sympathetic to its realigning possibilities, it was not the “guiding spirit Trump” they were anointing, but a bucket of cold water, right in the face. 

Just to be clear, I know we live in the 21^st century.  We can’t depend upon what worked in the past, even if frequently successful, to resolve the present crisis and bring us peace with justice.

Nor though, can we allow a President of the United States to believe that, like Zeus of old, he can, with thunderbolts in both hands, threaten the world into peace.

Today’s thunderbolts are tipped with nuclear warheads.

So, am I saying I learned something from the Convention?  Perhaps. If Burnham were still alive, he would have the last word. I actually on many occasions heard him say what I believe it would be, “there is no guarantee that realignments will always end well.”

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If this interests you, and you’re not a subscriber, check out past blogs and sign up for more. I think of these as trial ideas, inspirations, a bit like art. They are not from a “fixed” repertoire world view. I write blogs like I once wrote poetry. As standalone pieces that express what seemed to me at the moment as useful insights or challenging ideas. They are “thought pieces.”