Former President Donald J. Trump
Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech
Milwaukee WI July 18, 2024
By Michael Cornfield
Donald J. Trump’s third nomination acceptance speech was a strange show. It opened with glitzy lights, followed by a detailed self-narration of the shooting that credited God, the Secret Service, and the rally audience with saving his life. A quasi-religious moment was enacted as Trump gently kissed the helmet of the fallen hero killed as collateral damage.
Next, in an abrupt but familiar shift of tone, Trump thanked his family, especially Melania, and joked around with the faux tough-guy opening acts of the evening: Hulk Hogan, Lee Greenwood, Kid Rock, Jason Aldean, and Dana White.
Then came a typical rally-style rumble through the agenda, replete with fictional dialogues and preposterous claims and promises about inflation, crime, immigration, and international conflicts. Trump made his case in a mostly neutral, occasionally angry, and altogether subdued voice. It gradually numbed the crowd. Their chants and cheers trailed off as Trump broke his previous record to deliver the longest acceptance speech in the television-era record book at ninety-three minutes. In closing, Trump rattled off nine superlatives about what he will deliver upon re-election, a verbal firework burst that cued the balloon drop and family ascension to the stage:
America’s future will be bigger, better, bolder, brighter, happier, stronger, freer, greater and more united than ever before.
Perhaps the shrewdest aspect of the marathon address was Trump’s general omission of Biden’s name. He diffused the blame for America’s horrid state of affairs onto “the administration” and “Democrats” and the all-purpose “they.” He thereby let the unnamed perpetrator in chief dangle on the edge of his candidacy without calling additional attention to him or risking a comment that might backfire to his benefit. There was, however, one labeled exception:
If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States. Think of it. The 10 worst. Added them up, they will not have done the damage that Biden has done. Only going to use the term once. Biden. I’m not going to use the name anymore.
We shall see whether Trump extends this no-name pledge to the campaign ahead, as well as his declaration not to speak of his shooting again. He would be smart to let Vance and other surrogates assume those rhetorical duties.