Trump plans to promise 'unity.' His actual platform is anything but.

Donald Trump is set to close out the RNC today, marking his first public speech since an assassination attempt last Saturday. The nature of his address is expected to strike a different, less antagonistic tone than what is expected from typical Trump rhetoric. The GOP’s leading man has, allegedly, had a change of heart following his near-death experience and will stress national “unity” over partisan difference. 

"I think he's a changed man,” a former Trump campaign official told ABC. “Anytime you come within millimeters of your life, that has an effect. I think, from his standpoint, he doesn't want to be a divisive figure. He wants to be a unifying figure at a time that the country is desperately seeking unity and needs unity." 

"It's just not a moment for him, and it's just not a moment for the Republican Party. It's a moment for the country," he added. "We experienced a shock. We could literally be at a funeral today."

However, Trump’s potentially muted demeanor may be ineffective in distracting from the unpopularity of his platform. While the former president has gone to great lengths to remake the party and exclude more socially conservative topics from GOP messaging — such as slashing outdated allusions to gay conversion therapy — the actual intentions of his movement are proving difficult to hide. 

For example, as more and more liberals expose the general public to the threat of the Heritage Foundation's revanchist, regressive Project 2025, Trump has been forced to distance himself from both the personnel and the political preferences that make up the rank-and-file of the MAGA movement. “I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post earlier this month. 

Indeed, Trump seems to have enough instincts to understand a humbling reality: The misanthropes that make up the right’s brain trust are inherently alienating to the politically disengaged — the kind of voters he needs to win to return to the White House. 

Such circumstances will be even more problematic regarding Trump’s economic policies, which could see tax and price increases for middle-class and poor households should his tax policy and immigration plans return to the fold. 

And Trump’s new running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), also seems to have intuited that he’ll have to play three-card monte concerning his actual positions. Since accepting the VP nomination, Vance has removed anti-abortion language from his website, and he’s been mum about his support for a national abortion ban—a perspective Trump has been eager to oppose due to its unpopularity. 

So while Trump’s purported pivot to unity may be his latest brand of snake oil, it’ll be of the utmost importance for Democrats to demonstrate that the Republican nominee is backed by a coalition of reactionaries committed to a slate of anti-social proposals.