Trump misses a golden opportunity in his acceptance speech

The fourth and last day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) was the first in history to take place on a split screen. Reporters in Milwaukee, site of the Republican convention, found themselves, bizarrely, chasing down stories on the Democrats. On one side of the screen was Joe Biden, frail and not able to talk very well as he recovers from COVID-19, while on the other side was Donald Trump, who simply couldn’t stop talking. His speech of 92 minutes was the longest since 1972 and repeated many of the grievances he routinely speaks about at his campaign rallies.

But Trump wasn’t the sole focus. The whole political world was trying to figure out whether Biden was about to exit the stage, just as Trump was returning to it. Hours before Trump’s acceptance speech news stories, led by the journalist Mark Halperin, began to circulate saying that Biden would leave the race this weekend. Democratic luminaries such as former President Barack Obama, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had reportedly been trying to convince Biden to leave the race. Biden, isolated at his Delaware home was said to be feeling “betrayed by his former friends.” 

As the afternoon went on, we learned that another U.S. senator, John Tester (D. MT) had publicly called for Biden to step down. And between 20 and 30 members of Congress had made outright calls for him to step down or had indicated that they thought it would be better if he did. 

Perhaps most important, the public was ahead of the elected officials in the party. After expressing worries about Biden’s age for months, nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters now want Biden to step down.

As the drumbeat increased throughout the day one important group was missing–the 4,000-plus delegates to the Democratic convention. Where were they? Would they stick by Biden if he stuck it out? If he didn’t, would they all go to Vice President Kamala Harris? Would anyone but Harris enter the race with only a month to go before the Democratic convention?

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee Trump meandered his way through a speech so long that even his adoring delegates got restless. The convention’s previous nights foreshadowed a softer, more human Donald Trump–one who wanted unity and sought to be a leader for all of America. And he did strike a more subdued, less combative tone in the opening part of the speech. He began strong with an appeal to unity and pledged to be president for all of America, not half of it. He mentioned President Biden only once. 

But early on, he sent a signal that he would not be constrained by the text of his speech or his calls for unity. He went on at length about the attempt on his life, milking every detail for dramatic effect. After that, just about every sentence in his speech text became the occasion for extended digressions. He returned to these topics repeatedly, undermining the structure of his remarks. His sporadic efforts to pivot toward the future got lost in a rambling torrent of words. 

The last hour saw him continuing to claim several times that the 2020 election was stolen, praising authoritarian leaders around the world, saying he would lead the most massive deportation in the history of the United States, bizarrely mentioning the serial killer Hannibal Lecter, and promising that Russia and China would fear him so much they would stop their aggressive actions.

Trump did not finish his speech until after midnight. By then, much of the energy had drained from the crowd at the convention hall. One wonders how many of those viewing the speech on their televisions, computers, and cell phones had turned them off well before the long-overdue peroration.

As he took the stage, Trump had an opportunity to solidify the lead he gained in recent weeks. With an undisciplined performance, he missed this opportunity, leaving the door open for a Democratic candidate with the energy and vigor to attack Trump’s obvious flaws and controversial policy agenda. Increasing numbers of Democrats, both elected officials and rank-and-file voters, are concluding that President Biden is no longer such a candidate and likely leaning toward Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s standard-bearer. In a race that already has produced one dramatic moment after another, a Biden departure if it happens would upend the campaign and give Democrats a better chance at victory.