‘I alone can fix it’: What Trump’s speech revealed about the future of the GOP
CLEVELAND — When Donald Trump took to the stage of the Quicken Loans Arena to deliver his nomination acceptance speech, he was hoping for a repeat of 1968.
That was the year, of course, that “a chip-on-his-shoulder, knife-fighting white man” appealed to the United States’ racially anxious silent majority by promising to restore law and order — and won the White House over an establishment Democrat as a result.
And so, on Thursday night, Trump used his moment in the spotlight to portray the world around us as a terrifying hellscape, with hundreds of thousands of law-breaking illegal immigrants “tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens,” and murder on the rise because of this “administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.”
“The situation is worse than it has ever been before,” Trump added.
And the only solution, according to Trump, was Trump.
“The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” the real estate developer told the tens of millions watching at home. But, he added, “I have a message for all of you: The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end. Beginning on Jan. 20, 2017, safety will be restored.”
Never mind that the rate of violent crime has fallen by half since 1990. Never mind thatonly 3 percent of Americans list “crime and violence” as the nation’s most important problem. If it worked for Richard Nixon, why not try it again?
The problem, though, is that — as Mark Twain is reputed to have said — “History doesn’t repeat itself.” Rather, it “rhymes.”
The story of the 2016 election won’t be the story 1968, no matter how much Trump might want it to be. Trump isn’t Nixon; Hillary Clinton isn’t Hubert Humphrey. History doesn’t repeat itself.
But there were rhymes this week. And thanks to Ted Cruz’s dramatic mutiny Wednesday night — the boos and back-turning it provoked; the division and doubt it exposed — the most revealing was the way Cleveland rhymed with the GOP’s rancorous 1964 convention in San Francisco.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed that Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater was, in some respects, the Trump of his day. He was a Republican insurgent. He was running against the establishment. His views — on the New Deal, on the Cold War — weren’t considered mainstream. He was seen as impulsive, hot-headed, ill-informed — not someone to be trusted with the nuclear codes. The press was hostile. He opposed the Civil Rights Act, and white supremacists were drawn to him.
In the primaries, Goldwater vanquished his main rival, moderate New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, along with several lesser competitors. But the moderates did not give up. In June, they launched a “Stop Goldwater” movement. They even drafted a candidate: Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton. And when Scranton’s 11th-hour challenge fizzled, Rockefeller decided to go to San Francisco himself and propose a platform amendment repudiating Goldwater’s extremist followers.
“During this year, I have crisscrossed this nation fighting … to keep the Republican Party of all the people, and warning of the extremist threat,” Rockefeller said from the convention stage. “These things have no place in America.”
The delegates threw paper at the stage. “We want Barry!” they chanted.
“Some of you don’t like to hear it, ladies and gentlemen, but it’s the truth,” Rockefeller said.
“You goddamned Socialist!” cried a young Goldwater supporter.
The booing was so loud, Rockefeller could barely finish his remarks. Historian Rick Perlstein later described the event as the “ugliest of Republican conventions since 1912.” And with the GOP divided — Rockefeller, like Cruz, refused to endorse his party’s nominee — Goldwater went on to lose 44 states on Election Day.
The scene Wednesday night was similar. When Cruz urged listeners to “vote your conscience,” thousands of delegates booed and turned their backs, choosing instead to face Trump, who had materialized on the other side of the Quicken Loans Arena in silent, seething protest.
“Vote for Trump! Vote for Trump!” they shouted. “Go home, Ted!”
And yet a rhyme isn’t a repetition. Trump could win in November, or he may lose in a landslide, with party discord playing a part. But for anyone looking to answer the big post-Cleveland question — Where does the GOP go from here? — it’s worth remembering what happened after Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Goldwater: Conservatism took root. The movement blossomed. Eventually, Ronald Reagan won the White House and Republicans recaptured Congress after decades in the wilderness.
Was Cruz’s rebellion the last gasp of the old guard? Has movement conservatism lost its grip on the GOP? Is the inward-looking “Americanism” that Trump touted in his address ascendant?
Or is Trump a party of one, without the infrastructure or ideological integrity to sustain the kind of movement that could remake the GOP?
We’ll know more in a few years’ time. Still, an early clue came Thursday night, in the middle of Trump’s address. He was bemoaning America’s political system — how it permits “the powerful” to “beat up on people that cannot defend themselves;” how it’s “rigged against our citizens.” He claimed to know the system well. And then Trump uttered a telling line:
“I alone can fix it.”
