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Republican Convention Day 4: Cruz Stands Firm, Trump Speaks
G.O.P. Convention Day 4 Takeaways: It’s Donald Trump’s Party
(about 5 hours later)
Right Now: On the last night of the Republican National Convention, watch it live and check out our real-time analysis. Or, just get the highlights.
On the final night of a convention unlike any in memory, Donald J. Trump completed his unlikely envelopment of the Republican Party. His rule could last four months, or four years, or eight. All hail Trump. Our takeaways:
CLEVELAND — The final day of the Republican National Convention began with Ted Cruz on the defensive after he declined to endorse Donald J. Trump during his speech Wednesday night. On Thursday night, Mr. Trump’s address is the main event. A few things to watch for on the final day (watch our Facebook Live version, and scroll through some of Thursday’s best photos):
Mr. Trump and his fellow speakers over four days and nights did not pivot, did not shift, did not seek the notional sweet center of American public life. With few exceptions, the convention was aimed at stirring up true believers and wedding them to his cause. The emotional and cultural core of Mr. Trump’s campaign — reversal of, and even revenge for, perceived slights, disrespect and loss — were undisturbed and at times amplified before a prime-time audience. In Mr. Trump’s telling, the most powerful nation in the history of the world was a victim. And Mr. Trump was its avenger.
Facing jeers even from many of his own constituents, Mr. Cruz defended his non-endorsement of Mr. Trump, talking down hecklers at a fractious breakfast after his performance onstage upended the Republican National Convention.
While his message was unchanged, the packaging was updated. Mr. Trump spoke almost entirely from a script, and his unmistakable voice had been sculpted into something resembling a traditional tone for a nomination acceptance speech. Only once did he break the mask — when Mr. Trump, grimacing theatrically, mocked those who had said he could never win. The result was a Trump packaged for prime time.
In an extraordinary display of party division — at a typically staid Texas state delegation breakfast that is held with the intentions of exemplifying convention-week harmony — Mr. Cruz strained to manage the vitriol directed his way, stressing that he had not said a cross word about Mr. Trump.
Though the delegates represented only a slice of the Republican electorate, the pulse in the convention hall on Thursday night revealed what seemed like a new political topography for the party. Mr. Trump’s obligatory riffs on taxes and regulation were warmly but not passionately received. By far the biggest outpouring of energy came when Mr. Trump described killings by illegal immigrants, tapping into a deep well of anxiety and fear. A prominent technology entrepreneur, Peter Thiel, won applause for saying he was proud to be gay, and Mr. Trump earned ovations for promising to protect gay and lesbian Americans — not from discriminatory laws, but from Muslim terrorists bent on killing them.
“I addressed the convention because Donald Trump asked me to,” he said. “And when Donald Trump asked me to, he didn’t ask me to endorse.”
In biographical videos, Mr. Trump was introduced as an outer-borough Horatio Alger, peering across the East River at lands unconquered by his father, a real estate developer. Perhaps reflecting Mr. Trump’s own sensibility — a guy dismissed by the swells, who battered his way into the elite — the video narration also made Queens sound as far from Fifth Avenue as St. Louis.
Repeatedly, the taunts rained down on him.
Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka delivered perhaps the only speech — other than the opening and closing prayers — shorn of partisan and ideological tones. Mr. Trump promised to make America win again, but only after an hourlong tour of despair and dishonor. The United States electorate has historically rewarded candidates who could seize a sense of optimism. November will test that trend.
“What does it say when you stand up and say ‘vote your conscience,’” he began, “and rabid supporters of our nominee begin screaming, ‘What a horrible thing to say!’”
Say this for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas: No one is talking about plagiarism so much anymore.
Mr. Trump’s convention week has been unwieldy, unkempt and, for many Republicans, entirely unwelcome. What it has not been is unified.
After Mr. Cruz’s high-stakes maneuver on Wednesday — telling Republicans to “vote your conscience,” if not necessarily for their nominee — Mr. Trump has a final chance to bring the party together, or something like it. The stated mantra for Thursday evening: “Make America One Again.”
Little in his campaign history suggests he is inclined to be magnanimous to those who might oppose him. After Mr. Cruz’s speech, Trump allies like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey responded with fury.
But in a possible signal of Mr. Trump’s desire to salve wounds before the convention is up, he sought to remain above the fray, at least by his standards. He observed on Twitter that Mr. Cruz had defied his pledge to support the Republican nominee. But, he added, “no big deal!”
Since effectively seizing the nomination in May, Mr. Trump has presided over dueling factions in his campaign orbit: those eager to “let Trump be Trump” and those pining for a general election “pivot” that never seemed to arrive.
On Thursday, the candidate will have a thematic choice to make. Despite the party’s push to professionalize Mr. Trump’s operation, bringing in more seasoned aides and nudging him toward using a teleprompter, he has remained a force that cannot be tamed.
After a speaking roster pitched squarely at the Republican base — punctuated by chants of “Lock her up!” amid a series of blistering attacks on Hillary Clinton — some veteran Republicans are hopeful that Mr. Trump might cast a wider net, courting independent voters with a populist message.
Then there is the other order of business: Make sure it’s all original.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, broke with Mr. Trump on Thursday over the Republican nominee’s suggestion to the Times that the United States might not automatically defend NATO allies if he became president.
“It is the most successful military alliance in the history of the world,” Mr. McConnell said during an interview at his convention headquarters in downtown Cleveland. “I want to reassure our NATO allies should any of them be attacked, we will be there to defend them.”
“I am willing to kind of chalk it up to a rookie mistake,” he said. “I don’t think there is anybody he would choose to be secretary of defense or secretary of state who would have a different view from my own.”
Mr. McConnell said Mr. Trump’s comments reflected a stage of his learning process as a relative newcomer to politics. Watch the entire interview on Facebook Live.
So far, despite a smattering of arrests, predictions of unruly protests have not borne out.
The most fractious exchange yet came on Wednesday, when several people were arrested after trying to burn an American flag near the convention site. Two officers were assaulted, the police said, sustaining minor injuries.
On Thursday, circumstances might conspire to escalate tensions. As Mr. Trump prepares to take the stage, groups of demonstrators are expected to descend on Cleveland in a final show of opposition.
By midafternoon, anti-Trump marchers will gather for the first of what is expected to be a rolling series of demonstrations.
When Mr. Trump speaks, a march against Islamophobia is planned in the public square.
A religious leader and a tech billionaire walk into a convention. …
Mr. Trump’s chief character witness on Thursday will be Ivanka Trump, his daughter, whom even many Trump critics admire as a poised and articulate messenger.
But Mr. Trump will also trot out two supporters whose embrace has earned them considerable scorn. The first, Jerry Falwell Jr., is the president of the religious institution Liberty University. He has attracted some criticism from evangelical leaders who are less than convinced of Mr. Trump’s devotion to faith.
The other is Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, who has become a lonely backer of Mr. Trump among Silicon Valley titans.
Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trump’s running mate, was the headliner Wednesday night, but the most remarkable moment belonged to Mr. Cruz, whose speech ended in boos from the crowd when it became clear he would not formally endorse Mr. Trump.
While Mr. Trump’s success is often treated as a freak occurrence without precedent in United States history, his candidacy falls within an American tradition of insurgent politics that has found expression in other moments of social and economic rupture.
The convention, until Wednesday perhaps, had shown signs of lacking energy, but it also struck a strikingly sinister tone in the attacks against Mrs. Clinton, including the repeated chants from the floor to “Lock her up!”
