MILWAUKEE — At the Republican National Convention in 2016, delegates from Washington and Idaho arrived with their loyalties split between two candidates. When former President Donald Trump took the stage at the close of this year’s convention on Thursday, the GOP appeared more united than ever.
Five days after surviving an assassination attempt and three days after delegates officially made him the party’s nominee for president once again, Trump began his headlining speech with “a message of confidence, strength and hope.”
“Division in our society must be healed,” he said. “We rise together or we fall apart. I am running to be a president for all of America, not half of America.”
Several members of Washington’s delegation echoed that sentiment.
“I think that we’re uniting America further and further,” said Nino Kapitula, a delegate from Richland. “I think that people are starting to see not a political figure. They’re starting to see the humanity of Donald Trump. And I think there’s going to be a lot of compassion that’s going to come out of this convention toward him and toward his family, and what he had to go through over the last years.”
It was a message that mirrored the theme of the four-day gathering and represented a departure from Trump’s usual tone, part of a concerted effort by speakers throughout the convention to show their nominee in a more relatable, human light.
“An assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it again from me, because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
When Trump said he was “not supposed to be here tonight,” the crowd chanted, “Yes you are!”
The idea that the GOP was saved by divine intervention was repeated by members of the Washington delegation and their guest at a luncheon on Thursday, former GOP chairman Reince Priebus.
“Where would we be, what would be going on in this country if God didn’t lay his hand on this situation?” said Priebus, who briefly served as Trump’s White House chief of staff. “It would be an unknown, unmitigated, horrific situation, not just because of the tragedy but what would happen to our country. And I think we have an opportunity to make America one again.”
Janis Clark of Federal Way, Washington, a guest at the convention who is running for the 6th congressional district, said she believes that Trump “has been ordained by God for such a time as this.”
“The finger of God touched his life and showed him, ‘I’m protecting you. You’re on a mission from me,’ “ Clark said.
After the unusually personal reflection on just how close he had come to death — and a moment of silence for Corey Comperatore, the man killed by the man who fired at Trump — the former president returned to more familiar territory. He ran through a litany of accomplishments from his first term in office, then returned to his oft-repeated claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
“We’re dealing with very tough, very fierce people,” Trump said in a rambling reference to threats from abroad. “They’re fierce people. And we don’t have fierce people. We have people that are a lot less than fierce, except when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple of other things.”
Former Trump allies and members of his administration who told the president those claims were false were notably absent from the convention. But many of his former rivals were there, demonstrating just how completely he has remade the GOP in his own image three years after he was impeached for inciting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Rob Linebarger of Liberty Lake, a Spokane County GOP officer, said he hoped Trump would overturn the convictions of the rioters who entered the Capitol and attacked police officers in an attempt to stop the certification of election results.
“We see this complete abomination with the J6 people in jail,” Linebarger said, using an abbreviation for Jan. 6. “Day 1, he needs to pardon them and release them. They did not get due process.”
Northwest delegates said they saw a different Trump than they knew from his time in the White House.
“He has a lot more humility,” said Dorothy Moon, chair of the Idaho GOP. “You can just see on his face, he’s taking this job very seriously. He’s risked his life for it.”
Throughout the convention, delegates broke out in chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” that echoed the words Trump said when he rose from the rally stage in Pennsylvania, with blood on his face and surrounded by Secret Service agents. That moment and the iconic images it generated added to the mythos of Trump.
“To me, that is the embodiment of Trump’s resilience,” Carolyn Hall, a delegate from Cheney, said of Trump’s reaction to the attempt on his life, adding that Trump is willing to stand up for everyone, not just himself, despite the allegations, smears and bullets thrown his way.
When Trump first made his entrance to the convention on Monday, with a large patch of white gauze on his right ear, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump appeared to tear up.
“It was a touching moment for us all,” said Lyle Dach, vice chair of the Spokane County GOP. “I shed a tear,” Hall added.
The theme of GOP unity pervaded the convention. Susan Hutchison, a former chair of the Washington GOP, said that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the arena was a Trump fan, even if that appeared to be the case.
“The Never-Trumpers today don’t have an alternative,” Hutchison said, referring to anti-Trump Republicans. “They just have nothing. And so their argument is it’s not very easy to follow, because in politics, it’s a binary choice. You’re gonna get one or the other. So you might as well help mold the one that you like the most.”
Jack Riggs, former Idaho lieutenant governor and state senator from Coeur d’Alene, and a founder of the North Idaho Republicans, a group that has criticized the current leaders of the Kootenai County GOP for associating with racist and antisemitic groups, said he appreciated the message of unity at the convention.
“I am glad that the convention seems to be embracing that approach,” said Riggs, who didn’t attend the convention. “There’s a number of speakers of color. And that’s one of the things I’ve really liked about the convention so far. I think it has been diverse. It’s conservative. It is pro-Trump. Right now, I couldn’t be happier with how the convention has gone so far.”
Whether that intra-party unity could extend outside of the party was less clear.
Deanna Martinez, chair of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, a moderate GOP group, said she had been watching the convention from Moses Lake.
“I was like, ‘This sounds really good, but are we just talking about Republicans?’ “ Martinez said. “Because if we are, I mean, that’s a nice start. But the reality is, it shouldn’t be just Republicans that are unified.
“Every one of us is an American. It doesn’t matter what our political viewpoints are. We belong to this nation and all of us should have a voice.”
