This Isn’t the Convention Trump Really Needs
In a normal presidency, this would be a week spent wooing that elusive band of independent voters, unspooling new policy ideas, or putting forward a message that caters to some part of the electorate beyond the loyalists hell-bent on voting for Donald Trump no matter what.
That’s the convention Trump needs, but not the one he wants. What the Republicans are delivering instead is a four-day coronation, a paean to a president who’s trailing in the polls and aggrieved that a country with a few other things on its mind—disease and economic despair—isn’t showing him sufficient gratitude. Joe Biden is “going to be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe,” Trump complained to Fox News this summer. “And, you know, all I’m doing is my job.”
Day after day, Republicans have dispensed with the notion
