What Went Down On Night 1 Of The RNC

I have lots of little takeaways from RNC Night 1 that don’t really add up to one big one, so here goes: The in-person format worked well and made for a more seamless presentation than the DNC, and there was more substance to a lot of the speeches than just “Trump is good.” Scott’s speech was especially good, and I thought it was interesting that Republicans focused on a lot of the old hits like school vouchers and appointing Supreme Court justices. On the other hand, it’s interesting that those speeches existed alongside those of Gaetz and Guilfoyle, who gave very over-the-top, Trumpier speeches. Even though Trump has shown that rhetoric can be effective at rallying a base, I just don’t think it’s an effective message to the American public. Overall, the “optimism” we were told would be present at the RNC was in short supply tonight (again, with the notable exception of Scott’s speech). Overall, a pretty whiplash-y night.

It seemed to me that the production values of the GOP convention were simply higher than those at last week’s Democratic confab. Maybe that had to do with the fact that Democrats more fully embraced a virtual convention. But otherwise, the evening had a few simple themes: Democrats are socialists, want anarchy and chaos, seek to defund the police, and Biden is the Trojan horse who will make it all possible if he’s elected. That sort of messaging fits in with negative partisanship, which holds that many voters dislike the other party more than they like their own. It’s hard to say whether this could bring in more voters who have mixed to negative feelings toward the president, however.

A lot of what went on tonight was playing hide the football. Scott gave an effective speech, but wasn’t talking very much about Trump. People praised what the economy looked like during Trump’s first three years, but not really talking about what happened to it under COVID-19. That’s probably the best the Republicans can do under the circumstances, though, and the production values were better than I expected.