“Braveheart” is how delegates at the Republican national convention are describing Donald Trump after he survived an attempted assassination.
The first day of the jamboree in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, showed that the former US president inspires more awe and admiration than ever among his dedicated Republican base after the incident on Saturday.
Some expressed hope that Trump will seize the moment by accepting the party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night that redefines him as a unifier intent on lowering the political temperature.
“I do think the slogan ‘Make America one again’ sounds pretty cool,” said Reince Priebus, chairman of the host committee and formerly Trump’s White House chief of staff. “The president has said that he is apparently looking at his speech. It’s an enormous opportunity that he has to galvanise the country and we’ll just see what he does with it.”
Downtown Milwaukee has been turned into Trumpville for the week, festooned with the stars and stripes, Republican banners and “Make America great again” hats, T-shirts and other merchandise. On display are a cardboard cutout of Trump as Rambo, a Trump bust carved from Indiana limestone and a Trump shoe – a classic black cap-toe oxford crafted by Johnston & Murphy.
Inside the arena, jubilant delegates cheered as they formally nominated Trump to the Republican presidential ticket soon after he announced the Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate. When a video montage of Trump dancing at rallies – a source of mockery for political satirists – was shown on giant screens, the crowd cheered and danced along with “Trump” signs.
Memories of the 2016 convention, when vocal Trump critics could be found with ease, have been banished. A gunman’s attempt to kill him has turned him into “the Braveheart of our time”, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, said in a floor speech.
It was also an excuse to castigate Joe Biden. Wes Nakagiri, a county commissioner in Livingston county, Michigan, arrived at the convention on Monday wearing a homemade shirt that said: “Hey Joe, it’s called an attempted assassination.”
Nakagiri said that he was upset that the president did not immediately refer to the attack on Trump as an attempted assassination. “That’s what it is. They talk about unity. I think that one of the things that’s a prerequisite for unity is truth. If you’re going to try to downplay that it was something other than an assassination, that’s not the truth. I don’t think that helps bring us together.”
Biden referred to the incident as an attempted assassination during an Oval Office address to the nation on Sunday evening. Law enforcement officials are also investigating the incident as an attempted assassination.
Others spoke of their horror at learning of the attack at Pennsylvania rally which injured the 45th president’s right ear and caused the death of a supporter in the crowd.
Rebecca Harary, co-founder and president of the America First Club in Boca Raton, Florida, said: “My heart broke immediately. I started crying. I didn’t even see any of the videos yet or anything. I heard that he was shot. I stopped what I was doing, I found the nearest television set and turned it on and tried to catch up and see what was going on. Thank God he was OK.”
Asked if the incident had changed the tone and tenor of the convention, Harary replied: “It gives us much more power, much more strength, much more will to make sure that Trump wins and wins loudly, greatly, strongly and with all of the determination and perseverance that he portrays.”
Mary Beth Kemmer, 75, an Ohio delegate, said: “I was shocked and in tears because I don’t want this to happen to anybody. I don’t think that says anything good about the country for anybody to have that happen. I wouldn’t want that to happen to President Biden either. That’s horrible.”
Kemmer praised Trump’s reaction. “I was just so impressed that he came up and he’s like, no, we’re gonna fight, we’re not going to let somebody win that’s going around the system in a sense. He’s brave – they keep calling him Braveheart.””
Her husband Mel, 76, a retired judge, weighed in: “He is the leader in every minute of every day.”
Despite his violent rhetoric in the past, and his instigation of the deadly riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, some here believe that Trump is the right man to bind the nation’s wounds after nearly being killed at a campaign rally.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, said at a CNN/Politico Grill event: “It’ll be one of those moments that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will read about in history books.
“I hope what they’re saying then is that this was a moment when the United States of America turned a page from a toxic chapter in its national history and that Donald Trump, when he got back for that second term, was ready to fight fire with water.”
