The GOP Is Both Grand and a Party Again

by STEPHEN KRUISER

There is something really extraordinary going on this week: it’s not awful to be a Republican or a conservative who’s voting Republican this year. Let’s be honest here — that’s a novelty. I mean, I think that the last time I was really excited during the week of the Republican National Convention was in 1984.

Yeah, it’s been a while.

There might have been a couple of others that were passable, but the GOP has been heavy on the “O” and short on the “G” for a few conventions now. The last one was not even a real convention, of course.

Back in 2016, the Never Trump loons were trying to attempt a palace coup and derail Donald Trump’s nomination, which cast a pall over the entire RNC.

The 2012 Mitt Romney convention was like going to the dentist and getting teeth pulled without any anesthesia.

My liver is still tender from making it through the 2008 John McCain experience.

Last night my mom called to tell me how much she has been enjoying watching the convention (excellent parenting — my sister and I never had wandering liberal phases when we were young) and I told her that I was too, which has been a source of surprise to start the week. I started watching for work, of course, but then realized that the vibe was very refreshing, especially after the awfulness of the weekend.

A lot of people are feeling it:

I’ve been intimately involved in Republican politics since I was a kid and other than the Reagan years I’ve never seen Republicans and Americans more fired up, more resolute, more united, and more fiercely prepared to join arms to restore America to its founding principles.

God…

— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) July 17, 2024

I’m sure that David and I aren’t the only conservatives in a certain age group who find this reminiscent of the Reagan years. That doesn’t mean that Trump is Reaganesque — nobody is ever going to be Reaganesque and Republicans have got to stop dreaming about that. What it means is that Donald Trump’s energy and commitment have brought some optimism and levity to a party that feels like the last three-and-a-half years have been 20.

A little fresh air is a very, very good thing. In the current political maelstrom of American politics, we have to cherish what moments we can. The cherishing is definitely on this week. This is from something my good friend and longtime partner in liver damage (They regenerate!) Stephen Green wrote yesterday:

Slate’s Aymann Ismail wrote Tuesday that he expected the RNC to be “dark and tense” but after arriving there on Monday found it to be “something else entirely.”

“The mood was not tense—it was almost chipper,” he discovered. “Once inside, I was again surprised by the jubilance of the many conventiongoers. Red hats crowned smiling faces as attendees giddily rushed toward the arena and secured a place in line to get inside and escape the heat.”

As Stephen notes in his column, that doesn’t jibe with the Democrats’ narrative about everyone on the Right being a smoldering domestic terrorist on the verge of blowing up the neighborhood (I embellished a bit there). Democrats are bitter grievance-mongers who are always in the throes of projection. They assume we’re bitter and miserable because they’re bitter and miserable.

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