The Republican National Convention, which kicks off Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a “national special security event,” meaning each and every one of the more than 50,000 credentialed attendees will be signed The 2024 convention will be the 77th “special event” coordinated by the US Secret Service, which is responsible for planning. The 2024 convention will be the 77th “special event” coordinated by this agency, supported by a huge presence of state and local law enforcement. This deployment will be reinforced following the attack suffered by Donald Trump on Saturday in Butler (Pennsylvania), when the Republican was slightly injured by a bullet and was removed from the stage where he was holding a rally.
Provided that the events in Butler do not force a change of plans, for four days until Thursday, the 50,000 delegates, representatives, advisers, guests and journalists — a legion of them from abroad — will meet at the Fiserv Forum, the home stadium of the Milwaukee Bucks professional basketball team. But there will be other parallel forums, in convocations of the media and various interest groups that will feature guests who will capture the attention, such as Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the former president.
The 2,400 delegates representing the 50 states and six US territories will officially elect their presidential and vice presidential nominees at the convention. There are no surprises on the agenda, as Trump secured the vast majority of delegates in the Republican nomination process earlier this year, so his nomination in Milwaukee is mostly a media-driven affair. While he faced a lot of internal criticism in 2016 and 2020, the party is now paying him full homage, as evidenced by the fact that registered voters receive mail from the fundraising team bearing the stamp Trump National Committee stamped over the address of the Republican National Committee in Washington.
The crowning moment will therefore be his coronation as presidential candidate, with a speech scheduled for July 18, the last night of the convention; an event that will be attended by his wife, Melania, who has been absent for most of the campaign, and most likely by his youngest son, Barron, who has already seen some of the crowds during it. The vice-presidential candidate, who will be designated during the convention, will address the attendees on Wednesday, July 17.
Milwaukee, with a population of 562,000, is the largest city in Wisconsin, one of seven swing states that could determine the final outcome of the November election. The Republicans’ decision to hold the convention in Wisconsin, which has chosen the candidate who won nationally in the last four elections, is no coincidence. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020 by less than a percentage point, and polls show a very close race between him and Trump in November.
The Republican candidate called Milwaukee a “horrible city” at a meeting with Republican lawmakers last month. Spokespeople for his campaign quickly qualified his remarks, saying he was probably referring to problems with crime and voter fraud. Again, this was unfounded reasoning, since insecurity has declined by all indicators in Milwaukee — as in major US cities — and there is no evidence of corruption in the 2020 elections or the 2022 midterm elections.
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Blockbuster set
Amid a sea of red, white and blue balloons, thunderous music and choreography worthy of a blockbuster, Trump’s enthronement as a presidential candidate is also a golden opportunity, media-wise, to attract the attention of the country, get free publicity and draw in doubtful and undecided voters to the polls, which will be key to the final result in November.
It will also be the programmatic moment in which heavyweights such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the race for the nomination in January, and rising stars of the party will try to stand out with their speeches, some of them televised. The Republican National Committee has announced the thematic blocks for each of the days. Monday, when the largest attendance is expected, will be dedicated to Trump’s economic plans, focused on dismantling the so-called Bidenomics (the former president has a special fixation on “ending the mandate [promoción] (The Democratic administration’s “electric car” plan). He also claims, without explaining how, that his plans to deport millions of illegal immigrants will lower inflation.
On Tuesday, the border will be in the spotlight, with speeches aimed specifically at the families of people allegedly killed by undocumented immigrants, in a false equivalence—immigration equals crime—that obsesses Trump but that the data insists on refuting. Wednesday is National Security Day, when delegates and the public will hear arguments about Biden’s “weakness” and “failure” as the country’s commander in chief. Thursday will be an exercise in narcissism: Trump himself, embodied in his promise to “make America great again” (Make America great againin its acronym MAGA, the backbone of the republican revolution).
Guests, defendants and absentees
Among the speakers at the convention will be entrepreneur David Sacks, who has an influential podcast called All-In (all in) for which he interviewed Trump a few weeks ago. Sacks is also known for his closeness to Elon Musk and billionaire Peter Thiel, who gave a speech at the Republican convention in 2016, the year Trump came to the White House. Also participating will be union leader Sean O’Brien, head of the Teamsters (1.3 million members), an intervention highly criticized by the organization’s leadership and which also opens a rift in the union front supporting Biden.
Among the convention attendees are some who are accused, such as the three members of the Arizona delegation, to whom the judge has had to grant a special permit for having participated, as false electors, in the plot to subvert the result of the 2020 elections. There will also be notable absences, those of half a dozen senators who have abstained from supporting Trump in the primary process, including Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Rand Paul. Most have cited commitments in their state or abroad to excuse themselves. “I’m busy,” Paul said laconically. But the most notable absence will be that of Nikki Haley, Trump’s last rival in the primaries until he threw in the towel in March. The candidate, however, will ask her 97 delegates to support Trump, according to sources on her team.
Democratic counterprogramming in Milwaukee
Democrats have counter-programmed the Republican festivities to remind Milwaukeeans that not long ago Donald Trump insulted their city by calling it “a horrible place.” About fifty city buses will circulate these days plastered with advertising recalling the insult, but also with criticism of the Republican’s positions on abortion or the cost of medicines, as well as a reminder of his recent criminal conviction in New York for the Stormy Daniels case. Judging by the short distance between the stadium where the convention is being held and the hotel that serves as the campaign headquarters, just a few blocks, it doesn’t seem like the buses are going to have much work, let alone an audience. Meanwhile, Cavalier Johnson, the first black mayor of Milwaukee, who is a Democrat and does not look kindly on the Republican tsunami, is rubbing his hands together because the call has put his city on the global map and, of course, because of the economic return that the event will have on the public coffers. There is not a single hotel room left in the city and its surroundings, despite the astronomical prices: the few that are offered, due to cancellations, are around $800 a night in a three-star hotel.
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