On Sunday afternoon, the day after being targeted by an assassination attempt, Donald Trump used his social media platform to promote a simple message. “UNITE AMERICA!” the former president wrote.
Those who saw this and hoped that the terrifying events in Pennsylvania on Saturday might force a shift in the political climate quickly learned otherwise.
On Monday afternoon, Trump published an angry and conspiratorial message that sounded an awful lot like the sort of content the Republican published before the shooting. Soon after, the former president announced his running mate: Sen. JD Vance, a relentlessly partisan lawmaker who, just two days earlier, blamed President Joe Biden and his campaign team for the gunman who targeted Trump.
Then the Republican National Convention got underway. As a Washington Post report summarized:
After the assassination attempt, the Trump campaign and Republicans previewed what was supposedly to be a more unifying message. There was reason to doubt that would truly be what we’d get this week, and it proved a tough promise to keep.
Part of the problem with the opening night of the Republican gathering in Milwaukee was the speaker’s list: It included North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an extremist who recently declared, in reference to his perceived political enemies, “Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
Attendees also heard from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a secession proponent who, as recently as this past weekend, said Democrats are “pedophiles” and “flat out evil.”
And then, of course, there was the senior senator from the great state of Wisconsin. HuffPost noted: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for example, opened the slate of GOP speeches by attacking the “radical far-left agenda,” which he defined as a “fringe … that includes biological males competing against girls and the sexualization and indoctrination of our children.” He went on to call Democratic policies “a clear and present danger to our institutions, our values and our people,” drawing cheers from the audience.
So much for “UNITE AMERICA!” In fairness, it’s worth emphasizing that Johnson — whom The New York Times once described as “the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation” — told PBS’ Amna Nawaz after his remarks that the teleprompter featured a previous version of his remarks. The GOP senator claimed he intended to deliver a more unifying message, but there was some kind of mix-up. Whether that’s true or not is anyone’s guess, but the bottom line remains the same: The Republican emphasis on “unity” was nice while it lasted, but it didn’t last long.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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