On Thursday night, my party bent the knee and enthusiastically nominated a man convicted of numerous felonies for president of the United States.
In a Milwaukee convention hall full of activists and party loyalists whom I have known for years, there were also election deniers, organizers of the fake electors scheme and active participants in the insurrection against our nation on Jan. 6.
Then, in that most poignant of moments when a political party says “here is the best among us that we have to offer for service to our nation,” Donald J. Trump accepted his third Republican presidential nomination.
From the opening of his acceptance speech, Trump appeared to be deliberately somber, not leaning into the fiery affect that he so often uses at his rallies.
This version of Trump was just weird. He still can’t read a teleprompter properly, even as he launched into an account of the attempt on his life last weekend.
The whole scene was just a little too maudlin and unserious.
Now, I’m not going to begrudge a man from sharing his thoughts about a brush with death, and certainly many in the audience appeared visibly moved by it. But by the time he decided to kiss the helmet of former volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, the whole scene was just a little too maudlin and unserious.
It was also a weird bit of stagecraft considering that Trump took three days to call Comperatore’s widow.
Once we were past the emotional part of the program, it did not take long for Trump to return to form, offering his usual diatribe of lies and exaggerations about cities flooded with crime and inflation spiraling out of control.
But of all the untrue things he said, perhaps the biggest was when he claimed “this movement has never been about me.” It’s only ever been about him, and he has spoon-fed Republicans so much of himself that it’s now all they want, no matter how incoherent or offensive it may be.
On Thursday night, the Party of Lincoln finally solidified itself as the Party of Trump. And it wasn’t even his speech that did it. It happened the moment he accepted the nomination.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Alicia Menendez and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weekend” every Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
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