The fact that the Republican National Committee has written a platform suggests the party has finally cleared a low bar. It was, after all, just four years ago when the RNC — for the first time since 1856 — skipped the platform-writing process altogether and instead declared that it simply wanted whatever Donald Trump said he wanted.
With this in mind, the fact that Republicans actually bothered to write down their principles, priorities, values and goals certainly looks like progress — at least until one actually reads the document the party produced. USA Today’s Rex Huppke made the case that the Republicans’ new platform reads as if it were generated “by an authoritarian-leaning AI that was fed a Trump rally transcript.”
On Monday, the Republican National Committee’s platform committee adopted the strangest document ever created and declared it the party’s new official platform. It was less a serious expression of a party’s values and plans for governing and more a reminder that Republicans think actual policy proposals are for woke ninnies and American voters should just shut up and let billionaires control things.
What, specifically, makes the Republican platform so extraordinary? Let us count the ways.
The preamble: Before the blueprint begins in earnest, there’s a preamble, spanning nearly three pages, which appears to have been written by Trump himself. It’s filled with vapid, all-caps, bumper-sticker-style declarations, featuring a combination of vague goals and proposals that President Joe Biden has already delivered.
The contents: Some of the reporting about the new RNC blueprint has suggested that it was made deliberately more “moderate” than some far-right partisans preferred. Don’t believe it. As American Bridge’s Brandon Weathersby summarized in a statement, “The Republican National Committee platform is one of the most extreme party platforms ever in the history of modern presidential elections.” From immigration to education, taxes to law enforcement, there should be no doubt that this assessment is correct.
The omissions: Hoping to avoid campaign-season attacks, the Republican platform no longer calls for federal prohibitions against abortion and same-sex marriage, but as the editorial board of The Washington Post summarized, “The former president wants the 2024 GOP platform to be anodyne, but don’t be fooled. He has an extreme agenda.”
The language: It was hard not to notice that the new Republican platform condemns “Christian-hating Communists,” which is a phrase with a deeply ugly history. The length: The party’s platform in 2016 was nearly 60 pages. There were some reports indicating that this total, at Trump’s insistence, would be cut in half. Those reports understated matters: The actual text of the 2024 platform spans roughly 10 pages — reinforcing the fact that the contemporary Republican Party just isn’t serious about governing and policymaking. The process: While Republicans have spent decades crafting the party’s platform in public, this year, the process was moved behind closed doors. Even more incredibly, Politico published this report on the way in which the platform was approved: “Representatives from Trump’s campaign walked around the room with a ‘vote yes’ sign as voice votes were being held. … One RNC member who was present inquired about why staff of the Trump campaign and RNC were taking photographs of delegates as they voted.” For now, the document is still a draft platform: As NBC News reported, the blueprint “still must get approval from the full Republican National Committee.” Watch this space.
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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