Opinion

Republicans and Democrats agree: It’s all about Trump

Those in the crowd were rapt as she led them through her bio. Energy built as she spoke of her record. But things really got lively when, midway through her address, she turned to her opponent, denouncing this “unserious man” whose return to power would be “extremely serious.”

“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” she said, “and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States: Not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had — himself.”

A man with no cause greater than self. This was also the theme from the man Democrats put forward as one of the convention’s final speakers before Harris was introduced: Republican former congressman Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), who delivered an emotional denunciation of his Trump-occupied party. “The Republican Party,” he said, “has switched its allegiance from the principles that gave it purpose to a man whose only purpose is himself. Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim.”

And what was Trump doing while the Democratic National Convention drew attention to his epic selfishness? He was engaging in self-absorbed nattering. As Harris gave a powerful, emotional address, culminating in her ode to America as “the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” Trump was posting petty commentary about her speech on his social media site: “Too many ‘Thank yous,’ too rapidly said, what’s going on with her? … Walz was an an ASSISTANT Coach, not a COACH … WHERE’S HUNTER? … IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME? … FAILING NATION … Look, it’s Crazy Nancy Pelosi … Crooked Joe.” Trump then called into Fox News to rant, and, after the anchors there cut him off, he called into Newsmax to vent some more.

Both conventions are now over, and the two parties have arrived at a rare moment of agreement: This election is about Donald Trump’s self-love.

Republicans showed it by their actions at their cult-of-personality convention last month in Milwaukee. Trump gazed upon the podium from his throne, where his courtiers competed to hail his magnificence in the most florid terms. They claimed that God had delivered him from an assassin’s bullet, and they wore phony ear bandages in homage to the Great Leader. The party reinvented its platform and its principles to fit the whims of Trump, who took the stage in front of his name in huge white lights and spoke for 90 minutes about his glorious self.

And Democrats, in their convention here this week, returned again and again to the towering narcissism of their opponent.

“He’s about me, myself and I,” Bill Clinton told the delegates Wednesday night. “The next time you hear him, don’t count the lies — count the I’s.” For the record, Trump uttered the word “I” 207 times during his nomination acceptance speech. Clinton went on: “His vendettas, his vengeance, his complaints, his conspiracies: He is like one of those tenors opening up before he walks out onstage, like I did, trying to get his lungs open by singing ‘me, me, me, me, me, me.’ When Kamala Harris is president, every day will begin with ‘you, you, you, you.’”

Barack Obama hit the same theme on Tuesday night. “Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala,” he said. “There’s the childish nicknames. The crazy conspiracy theories. This weird obsession with crowd sizes.” The former president moved his hands apart and together in the accordion gesture Trump often makes.

A parade of others joined the ridicule of Trump’s self-aggrandizement. His former White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, noted that he mocked his supporters by calling them “basement dwellers,” and, “on a hospital visit one time when people were dying in the ICU, he was mad that the cameras were not watching him.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) opined that “Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets.” Former American Express CEO Ken Chenault said that Trump “will seek only to serve himself and his desire for vindication and vengeance.” A dozen others provided variations on the theme.

It was some expert trolling, and Trump took the bait. His campaign had arranged for him to give policy speeches about the economy and national security as counterprogramming during this week’s convention, but he kept whining about how the Democrats were “speaking so viciously and violently about me” and “taking shots at your president” and being “very nasty” and “mentioned my name, I think, 271 times.”

The GOP nominee admitted that his advisers tried to get him to not keep reciting his personal grievances.

“You know, they always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy. Don’t get personal.’ And yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people,” Trump complained. He polled the crowd on whether or not he should “get personal” in response. They thought he should. “My advisers are fired!” Trump said.

Democrats in Chicago were every bit as enthusiastic about their ticket as Republicans were about theirs in Milwaukee. Speakers celebrated the vigor and “joy” Harris has brought to the race since replacing President Joe Biden, and the folksiness and contagious enthusiasm of Tim Walz. And they spoke extensively about their agenda — abortion rights, middle-class economics — on every night of the convention.

But Harris probably wouldn’t be the nominee at all if it weren’t for Trump. Biden reluctantly, and heroically, stepped aside because of the imperative of beating Trump. “I love the job, but I love the country more,” the president told delegates on Monday night, and, “above all, we need you to beat Donald Trump.” Had the GOP nominee been, say, Nikki Haley, there probably wouldn’t have been the same pressure on Biden to step aside.

And just as Biden was the ideal figure — an old, moderate White guy — to restore normalcy in 2020, Harris is made for this moment. At a time when Trump has caused millions of American women to lose their rights, Democrats have a woman at the top of the ticket speaking forcefully about reproductive freedom. At a time when Trump is awaiting sentencing on 34 felony counts, Democrats have nominated a no-nonsense prosecutor. At a time when the 78-year-old Trump seems even more erratic than before, the Democratic standard-bearer is having a brat summer.

The focus on Trump’s narcissism is a strong theme for Democrats because it transcends ideology. Even many Trump supporters wish he would tone it down. But the conventioneers this week viewed the full suite of attacks on Trump. They saw the appalling footage of his supporters attacking police and sacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They heard about Trump’s endless grifting and self-dealing. (“If you don’t think a second term would be worse, then I’ve got a box of Trump steaks to sell you,” proposed New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.) They were reminded about his talk about being dictator-for-a-day and suspending the Constitution. (“This sucker means it,” said Biden.) Several speakers hauled out a comically large, hardcover copy of Project 2025 and read about the plans of Trump advisers therein to ban abortion, abolish the Education Department and more. (“How dare a convicted felon like Donald Trump treat women seeking health care like they’re the ones breaking the law?” demanded Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.)

Michelle Obama went after Trump for his racism: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” Hillary Clinton mocked his misogyny: “He’s mocking [Harris’s] name and her laugh. Sounds familiar.” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore mocked Trump for dodging the Vietnam War with “bone spurs,” and Duckworth called him a “five-time draft-dodging coward.” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) called Trump “an old boyfriend who you broke up with but he just won’t go away.” Added Jeffries: “Bro, we broke up with you for a reason.” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, a pastor, ridiculed Trump for selling a line of Bibles. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire, mocked Trump for inflating his wealth: “Trump is rich in only one thing — stupidity.”

Walz, speaking at a simultaneous rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday night that was beamed to Chicago, boasted that the Democrats’ crowd was larger than Trump’s. “That one guy’s going to be so sad tonight,” Walz said, making the same accordion-hands gesture Obama did. “So sad, so sad.”

Hillary Clinton recalled that Trump “fell asleep at his own trial.” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain called him a “scab.” (“Trump’s a scab!” the crowd chanted.)

Republican commentator Ana Navarro likened Trump to “communist dictators” who call journalists “the enemy of the people,” who “put their unqualified relatives in cushy government jobs so they can get rich off their positions” and “refuse to accept legitimate elections.”

Another Republican, Mayor John Giles of Mesa, Ariz., said of Trump: “Like a child, he acts purely out of self-interest.”

Speakers highlighted the fraud at Trump University and his sexual abuse in the E. Jean Carroll case. Members of the “Central Park Five” spoke about Trump’s call for them to be executed for a rape they did not commit.

And more than one resorted to the sort of name-calling for which Trump is famous. Rep. Pat Ryan (N.Y.) called Trump a “serial liar, cheater, thief” and applied some military slang to him: “FUBAR” — f---ed up beyond all recognition. Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) spoke of the GOP ticket as a “career criminal and incorrigible recidivist con man and his pet chameleon.” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called Trump “a fraud, a philanderer and a felon.” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Tex.) called him “a career criminal with 34 felonies, two impeachments and one porn star to prove it.” She further branded him a “predator, fraudster and a cheat” who “has only looked out for one person — himself.”

“Kamala Harris has a résumé,” Crockett concluded. “Donald Trump has a rap sheet.”

It was all clearly meant to get under Trump’s skin, which, of course, it did.

Instead of heeding his advisers’ pleas to stay on message, Trump spent his week mocking Harris’s laugh, calling her “comrade” and a Marxist, alleging that Biden was deposed by Harris in a “vicious, violent overthrow of a president.” He claimed that his policy on trade with Mexico is “probably why I get shot at.” He raged about “Crooked Hillary” (“I could have put her in jail”) and “Crazy Nancy Pelosi.”

But mostly, he felt very sorry for himself. “I didn’t need this. I didn’t have to do this. I didn’t need to get indicted by — any time I fly over a state, they indict you.” The poor dear. “I didn’t need this,” he repeated. “I had a beautiful life.”

With any luck, the world’s most selfish man will be able to get back to that beautiful life in 74 days.