What did the Republican National Convention tell us?

“The Republican Party is a big tent party, and all are welcome,” a South Dakota alternate delegate donning a “Make America Great Again” hat told me three hours before Donald Trump's keynote speech on Friday, cigar blazing between his knuckles. And while all manner of Americans find themselves within the broad church of the Republican Party, from excitable young Minnesotans keen for change to god-fearing Georgians in suits straight out of Gone With The Wind, there is a rift—a rift it falls to the leader of the party to smooth over in his address to the Republican National Convention.

“Vote your conscience.” With three words, the firebrand Texas Senator Ted Cruz sent a cacophony of boos ringing around the Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday. His crime? He’d given a high-profile speech at the Convention, extolling the virtues of conservative values, of working together as an American people towards a common goal—and he hadn’t endorsed Donald Trump, now officially the Republican nominee for President.

In another year, telling a roomful of conservatives to “vote with their conscience” wouldn’t even have raised eyebrows. In another year, conservative conscience would logically lead you to a vote for the Republican nominee. But as thousands of grassroots Republicans met in Cleveland, a question from the primaries reared its head: what does it mean to be an American conservative in 2016? And can Trump truly be considered one?

Early attempts to oust the businessman had fallen flat. Utah, who backed Cruz in their primary, attempted to push a rule change on the convention floor on Monday, hoping to cause a roll call that would unbind all delegates. One Utah delegate, describing himself as a “true conservative” complained to me about how “the convention chiefs said we didn’t have enough states, and then spent as long as they could persuading the ones we did have to change their mind.” He will now vote for Trump in November, though through gritted teeth.

The room was frenzied as Ivanka Trump introduced her father, guitars blaring. It was “The Donald” as you'd never seen him before: scripted, measured, even presidential. And while he earned whoops for every mention of “the wall” and “taking control of our borders,” some moments baffled the grassroots.

“This attack on the LGBTQ community is no good,” he said of Orlando, a key part of a very terrorism-flavoured speech. “We're going to stop it. I will do everything in my power to stop attacks on LGBTQ.”

This was met by muted applause, nowhere near the booming response, say, mentions of Hillary Clinton earned. A friend on the other side of the auditorium told of how he heard a delegate from a Southern state turn to her neighbour and repeat, in consternation, “Trump's pro-gay? Trump's pro-gay?! Trump's pro-gay?!?”

Here again were the “New York values” that Ted Cruz had attacked Trump for holding dear months ago, and a sign of the challenge ahead for him—pulling together all these disparate threads and uniting them under a common conservative banner.

The action in the arena was largely bereft of the introduction of actual policy. We were treated to the likes of Duck Dynasty’s Willie Robertson repeatedly declaring “Donald Trump will have your back” and former child star Scott Baio inviting voters to “make America America again.”

The 2016 hopefuls who spoke focused more on attacking the opponent—Chris Christie conducted a bemusing kangaroo court of Clinton, this year’s Clint Eastwood moment, while Scott Walker characterised her as “the ultimate liberal Washington insider.” A rapidly receding Marco Rubio appeared in a 90-second video labelling Clinton an “ultra liberal senator and reliable vote for crony capitalism, Wall Street bailouts, middle class tax hikes and out of control government spending.”

What has crystalised this convention is what the Republican Party is standing against—not so much what it stands for. Where in the past policies would have been offered, we’ve seen meaningless platitudes from D-list celebrities.

Alongside Cruz’s perceived slight, Ohio governor John Kasich snubbed the whole convention. He chose instead to attend the NAACP conference in Cincinnati at the start of the week, and only visited Cleveland briefly to address his state’s Republicans at a packed Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame on Tuesday.

Kasich took to the stage soundtracked by The Who tracks, fist-pumping in front of an adoring crowd. One of the more moderate candidates in the debates this year, he extended thanks to the local party for their support of his campaign, and described himself as “a slob trying to get through the day doing the best I possibly can, knowing I can try again tomorrow.” After a six-minute speech, he left—another high-profile Republican keeping it short, not endorsing the nominee, again hinting that this party is far from united.

The conservative movement has made its steadfastness on social issues the cornerstone of its platform—and yet it's here where Trump differs from a lot of the base. On abortion, though he currently maintains he's pro-life, he has flip-flopped. On transgender bathrooms, he's in favor of letting people use the bathroom of their choice. His grandstanding promises on immigration and reducing the size of government may improve his conservative credentials—but he still has a long way to go before the likes of the Utah delegation see him as “one of us.”

“I don’t want to watch him speak tonight,” said Emily Reinwald, co-president of the Yale College Republicans. “Why would I choose to witness the coronation ceremony of the man who tore my party apart? Donald Trump does not share the conservative values that the Republican Party was founded on.” That disgust doesn’t extend to the ballot box however, as “not voting for Donald Trump would be giving Hillary the presidency.”

Judging by what Cleveland showed us, Donald Trump will be depending on the Hillary hatred of America’s conservatives to carry him to the White House—and hoping that their “conscience” doesn’t lead them into the open arms of the opposition.



Matt McDonald is the US Editor of The Tab, a youth media start-up with a monthly audience of 5 million readers