What Went Down On Night 1 Of The RNC

Much of the first night seemed to take a classic law-and-order approach, painting a scary picture if the other side governs and a rosy one if they don’t. While most of the lineup was about reaffirming support for Trump, I found Scott’s speech to be a small window into what the Republican Party could become if it ran campaigns that tried to win over Black voters and other voters of color.

We saw a much different approach to an audience-less convention tonight. Most notably, we saw multiple presenters from a single location, while last week featured speakers from Zoom-ing in from across the U.S. As a television experience, it certainly flowed better, but as a viewer, it felt fairly one-note and quite safe. We saw the Democrats adjust to their new format throughout the week, and I’m curious what small changes will be put in place the rest of this week.

I think expectations for tonight (including mine) were pretty low. The plan for the RNC wasn’t clear even a few days ago. But they really pulled it off, at least in terms of the production values: It was polished, smooth, and really felt like a traditional convention. The other thing that really stood out to me was the effort by many of the speakers to talk about their personal interactions with Trump — to basically make him seem like a more empathetic figure. I wonder if we’ll see more of that this week?