[Adapted from the latest Radio Derb, now available exclusively on VDARE.com]

Yes, the Republican Party’s National Convention in Milwaukee, Monday through Thursday was quite a spectacle.

To begin at the end, though, I have a confession to make. Checking in on X this morning, Friday morning, I saw a tweet from Rod Dreher, whom I knew slightly in my National Review days and still follow. Rod is currently in Budapest, several hours ahead of New York time. Tweet from Rod:

Woke up here in Europe to see what ppl were saying about Trump speech, which I was too sleepy to stay up and watch. All my pro-Trump friends thought it was dull and Castro-like in length. Most bailed after an hour.

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) July 19, 2024

My confession is: Although I didn’t communicate with Rod, like him I bailed out and went to bed a half hour before Trump finished his speech. If I’d watched the whole thing, I have no doubt I would have belonged in that company of Rod’s pro-Trump friends.

Worse yet: Having made my confession there, for penance I really should read the transcript of Trump’s speech, but… I’m not going to. I have the New York Times version here on my laptop and I keep scanning through it, hoping for some long theme I can follow with interest, but… no.

I did, like the conscientious VDARE.com veteran that I am, I did do a Ctrl-F on ”immigr.” There were five hits.

In hit number one Trump was talking about the moment he got shot last Saturday: ”I was discussing the great job my administration did on immigration at the southern border.”

In hits numbers two through five, the word ”immigration” was immediately preceded by the word ”illegal” every time.

So: in an hour-and-a-half speech, not a word, not a whisper, about legal immigration. Over at the U.S. Tech Workers X handle, they are weeping softly.

All right: I’m a lukewarm Trumpster. He’ll make a far better president than anyone the Democrats have on offer and I’ll be voting for him in November. He’ll be better for the economy, better for our National Security, better for our demography, better for Supreme Court nominees, better all over; not only better than any Democrat, also better than most Republicans.

He’s still a blowhard, though, with a tendency to shirk the difficult stuff—especially the legislatively difficult stuff—and to forget promises he’s made.

That’s just me grumbling, mind. There was nothing lukewarm about this week’s convention. The delegates were fired up: waving their placards, calling out witticisms, cheering at every opportunity, breaking into chants of patriotism or mockery: ”U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! …” … ”Joe must go! Joe must go! …”

It was hard not to catch the enthusiasm, even for a lukewarm sourpuss like your genial writer here. This is what a party convention should be like.

The high spirits were raised even higher by Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his partner on the November ticket. The delegates weren’t just being polite: this was a really popular choice.

There’s been some crowing from Lefty outlets that Trump blew it with the Vance pick. Someone named Andrew Feinberg, writing at the U.K. newspaper Independent, tells us Vance will be easy for the Democrats to take down ”the millennial freshman who has exactly one election and two years in the Senate under his belt” [‘Bizarre beliefs’ and ‘creepy friends’: Choosing JD Vance could be a costly mistake for Trump, Andrew Feinberg, U.K. Independent, July 17, 2024].

My own impression is that Vance is well smart enough to take care of himself in debates with progressive nation-wreckers.

I’ll admit, though, that I have quietly wondered whether Trump nurses some sort of superstitious belief that his V.P. must have a five-letter, one-syllable surname ending in ”-n-c-e.”

I did also find myself thinking that maybe the organizers of the convention had let their class condescension show a bit too plainly.

I had a mental image of a roomful of those organizers—well-dressed middle-class suburban types with master’s degrees and bookcases full of, you know, books—saying to each other: ”OK, we’re the Rube Party now. Let’s get some rube culture up there on stage! Hulk Hogan—yeah! …”

Don’t get me wrong. I like hillbillies. Some of my best friends are hillbillies. There are, however, many thousands of independent voters out there who would prefer hillbillies stay in the hills, yet who can be brought to vote for Trump on sober consideration of the policies he will likely pursue in office.

These people never heard of Kid Rock. They would probably have preferred to hear Anna Netrebko.

Yeah, yeah, I know: they got Christopher Maccio at the very end of the convention performing Nessun Dorma:

But they had to stay awake through an hour and a half of Trump bloviating before they got it, and Netrebko is way better looking.

 When that Vucci photograph came out Saturday evening, that picture of Trump defiant, there was a lot of crowing on X.

”Game, set, and match!” people were tweeting. ”It’s all over! Trump’s a shoo-in for November—this picture alone will see him through!”

I was skeptical and early polling after the shooting confirmed my doubts. A poll conducted on Monday, reported by Newsweek on Tuesday, showed no boost at all for Trump from the assassination attempt [Donald Trump Does Not Get Post-Shooting Poll Boost, July 16, 2024].

Yeah, sure, polls are often wrong. From what I know of Trump haters, though—there are a few among my acquaintance—the Vucci photograph isn’t going to flip their vote.

It’s the Independents that matter, and most are just where they were two weeks ago: still considering, still weighing, and—oh yes!—still waiting to see what the Democratic Party comes up with.

But concerning Joe Biden’s intentions, condition, and prospects, as best I can judge nobody outside the inner chambers of our federal government has any idea, any idea at all.

John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.

For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.

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