More often than not, it's what a Republican politician doesn't say that contains the real message of their speech. Donald Trump's rambling speech at the Republican Nation Convention clearly fits in that category. While throwing a few pieces of red meat at the audience, it did not in any way represent the sort of pivot to the center to attempt to pick up undecided voters that we almost always see at this stage from a serious presidential candidate much less an attempt to woo any Biden voters.
So what was the message ? The closest I can come is a kind of tongue in cheek victory speech, the type that a candidate would make after they have won. No longer, having to worry about convincing anyone to vote for them, a winner, at least one with the mind of a seven year old like Trump, would deliver a smug, “see I told you so I am the greatest”, speech. Using a backdrop of the white house further cemented this message.
Choosing JD Vance as his vice president fits right in with this thinking. Vance is not going to bring Trump any new voters (Ohio is already in the bag for Trump). Instead he is more a pick of who Trump would want assisting him in the white house, a mini me of sorts, reinforcing his will. There seems to have been no consideration of how divisive a person he is and how he might alienate the center, much less the left, even further.
My response to this strategy is similar to my response to the Democrat's sudden push to remove Biden: Do they know something I don't know ? I'm still not sure in the case of Biden but some very respectable and smart people including Adam Schiff and Barak Obama have apparently asked him to step down. Only time will tell so maybe there is something I don't know. But in the case of Trump, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any crystal ball and is still basically neck in neck with Biden.
So what can we make of this thinking? My guess is that after many years in the game, Trump has successfully purged his entourage of anyone other than yes men. Like the smug dictators of yore, Trump now only hears how great and invincible he is. That he really doesn't need to campaign any more in the traditional sense, trying to woo undecided voters or cross overs but simply be himself and await the coronation in November.
If this is the case, it is a clear gift to the Democrats who must, and I am confident, will consider the election contested up until the day the polls close. Now is the time for them to go all out for those undecided and on the fence voters in the battleground states by making it unmistakably clear what a Trump administration would be like.