\n\tBut the president wants a party, and you can\u2019t dance with the lights on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tEighteen months ago Dallas would have been an auspicious location for this event. Trump, the keynote speaker for the first night of the two-day conference, made generational gains<\/a> among Hispanics in 2024. Governor Greg Abbott promised to carve out<\/a> five shiny new Republican House seats into the state\u2019s electoral map. The Lone Star State had become the southern Mecca of the techno-conservative revolution looking to find roots outside of Silicon Valley. But the right\u2019s gains among Hispanics have been erased<\/a>, a Democrat is well-positioned<\/a> to win a Texas Senate seat for the first time in decades, and one can\u2019t help but notice the sense of panic permeating the GOP\u2019s biggest party of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tThe first day of the 2026 Republican National Convention at the American Airlines Center, on Sept. 9, 2026 in Dallas, Texas.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s obvious what the president had in mind in pulling this party together. The scene feels like a pantomime of the 2024 nomination conference, held as Democrats scrambled to find their footing amid ever-intensifying concerns regarding Biden\u2019s ability to govern, much less campaign, and just days after Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. This week, a large photo of the now-president and the bandage he was sporting over his ear during his nominating convention hangs conspicuously on one of the arena\u2019s concourses. The one-year anniversary of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk \u2014 which coincided with the second day of the convention \u2014 supplanted Trump\u2019s close call with death as the avatar for leftist violence against persecuted conservatives. Republican after Republican trotted out the same lines of attack that propelled them to victory two years ago:\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n \n\tKiller migrants that rape and murder angelic young women. Leftist radicals looking to inflict police-free anarchy on American cities. The mutilation of children being subjected to horrific sex change surgeries. The threat of Sharia Law from Arab and Muslim Americans \u2014 like Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, and Hasan Piker \u2014 and the looming scourge of a communist, democratic-socialist takeover. Bread lines and authoritarianism are certain under Democratic rule, Donald Trump Jr. insisted. You may not be happy with us right now, but it could be so much worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m not asking anybody to agree on every single policy of the administration; what I am asking you to do is to recognize the contrast with the radicals and recognize the achievements of the last 18 months,\u201d Vice President JD Vance pleaded with the audience during his Thursday night keynote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n \n\tThe president self soothes via adulation. Yet even in his own Wednesday night speech<\/a>, Trump reluctantly acknowledged \u201cit\u2019s going to take a little bit longer than the midterms\u201d to normalize the spike in energy prices caused by his ongoing war in Iran. He attempted to blame the ongoing affordability crisis on his predecessor and the Democratic Party. To his and the GOP\u2019s frustration, voters \u2014 particularly independents \u2014 are not blaming it all on the opposition. They have handed Trump a historically low approval rating, and are tossing MAGA aligned Republicans out of Congress in primaries. The convention was nowhere near at capacity, despite local offers of free tickets and a lineup of MAGA favorites. In the absence of a clear argument for why voters should continue to trust the mercurial, impulsive, self-serving men dictating the direction of the party, Trump is turning to outright bribery<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tPeople of all colors listen as Donald Trump speaks on the first day of the Republican midterm convention.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend. Congratulations,\u201d Trump told the audience on Wednesday night. Vote Republican, you might get $5,000. It screams confidence in your prospects, does it not? Never mind that Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress, and that if this was about anything other than attempting to buy votes they could pass \u2014 or make a show of attempting to pass \u2014 the payments before the midterms. Never mind that Trump has repeatedly promised no-strings-attatched government checks that never materialize. Never mind that the tariffs that would supposedly fund the payments haven\u2019t generated even a fifth of the revenue that would be required. Never mind that \u2014 as Senate candidate Ken Paxton was reminded<\/a> in a live interview with Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier \u2014 these people are supposed to be fiscal conservatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tEven among the Trump-friendly crowd, there was a degree of skepticism. \u201cI don\u2019t think that a political promise should be made like that,\u201d one woman told me. \u201cThe votes don\u2019t come from being bought, so yeah, I\u2019m a little disappointed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTwo young men \u2014 locals who said they attended the conference mostly out of curiosity \u2014 said the promise was the \u201cstupidest thing\u201d they\u2019d heard from a politician.<\/p>\n \n\tThe promise crystallized the rot at the core of the convention: the party\u2019s total inability to respond to the concerns of the voters they need to retain from 2024, and insistence on filling the void with culture war dog whistles and cult-like devotion to Trump. Several high-profile candidates seem to realize this isn\u2019t a recipe for success this November. Maine Senator Susan Collins \u2014 facing a tight reelection battle in Maine \u2014 was conspicuously absent, as was Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan. Several candidates in critical House races considered potential tossups also ditched the president\u2019s festivities, including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), and David Valadao (R-Calif.)..\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThose who did make their way to Dallas played second fiddle to the president, vice president, and members of the administration. Paxton, a host candidate caught in an incredibly tight race to preserve the last three decades of Republican dominance in Texas, became a punchline in Trump\u2019s monologuing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI don\u2019t like the way Ken Paxton dresses. I don\u2019t really like the way Ken talks. I don\u2019t really like the way he looks. I don\u2019t like it,\u201d Trump said of the attorney general, who has been nothing but subservient and loyal to his agenda. Paxton, perpetually putty faced and on the spot, made a halfheated attempt at a forced smile. It was not reassuring. The party honored him and his service to the MAGA movement by putting him in a forgettable time slot<\/a> where he delivered a forgettable speech in which he highlighted Trump\u2019s record over his own and warned that his opponent James Talarico \u201cwants to transition your kids.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTrump made fun of Paxton again while speaking on Thursday. \u201cI said something yesterday, and I don\u2019t know if he\u2019ll ever talk to me again,\u201d the president said before repeating the same insults.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tGreg Abbott, who has governed the state for over a decade, promised to \u201cfully ban Sharia Law in Texas,\u201d a state with less than 500,000 Muslim residents within a population of 32 million. He promised to ban China, Iran, and Russia from buying land in the state \u2014 as if they were readily able to do so in the first place. \u201cThe Democrats running on the ticket in Texas, they\u2019re gaslighting the public about affordability,\u201d as if economic concerns<\/a> and inflation<\/a> aren\u2019t the issues of top concern to Texas voters this cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tRepublicans begged voters to preserve the Republican trifecta for just two more years. Just until 2028, then we can fight about who was at fault for the collapse of the economy, and the war in Iran, or the unraveling of our alliances. \u201cCan we please, we\u2019ve got to take care of business this November, then we\u2019ll worry about what comes next,\u201d Vance asked the audience at one point. His speech felt like the sort of address one would give once they won the nomination, the soft launch of ambitions beyond the vice presidency. But this is, and always has been, and for the foreseeable future will be, Trump\u2019s party. No second in command will be permitted to outshine him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tTrump supporters at the Republican midterm convention.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \n\tWhatever glow Vance was basking in was quickly dimmed under the radioactive sun of the president. Who wrote himself into the second night of programming and \u2014 just to drive the point home \u2014 reiterated his first night demand that voters imagine that it\u2019s him that\u2019s on the ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAs Trump closed out the night, American tenor Christopher Macchio belted \u201cNessun Dorma\u201d as a rain of red, white, blue, and gold balloons fell from the ceiling. The aria, performed in the third act of Giacomo Puccini\u2019s opera Turandot, is a favorite of the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTrump smirked into the audience alongside Macchio as his voice arced towards its final crescendo. \u201cVincero, vincero, vincero.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI will win, I will win, I will win.\u201d A declaration by the prince Calaf that he will secure the hand of the princess Turandot, whether she wants it or not. The chorus surrounding his avowal is that of Turandot\u2019s subjects, lamenting fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tTrump was totally alone onstage as he listened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I t\u2019s 3:42 in the hot heart of Texas, and the floor of the American Airlines Center in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24352,32270,102,104,103,145],"class_list":["post-434553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-2026-midterms","tag-controversy","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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