As convention nears, key players try to define GOP
Trump’s rise highlights seismic shift in party agenda
CLEVELAND No, this is not your father’s Republican Party — or your brother’s, or your sister’s.
It is Donald Trump’s shape- shifting Republican Party that gathers in Cleveland over the next two weeks, preparing for a contentious convention featuring a novice candidate, a new agenda and a nervous future.
“Win or lose, the Trump candidacy has inflamed the divisions within the Republican Party,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who served as spokesman for 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “Even if Trump does not become the president, these rifts will remain.”
Although the convention itself begins July 18, preparations begin in earnest Monday with platform hearings that may spotlight party differences over trade, immigration, and other issues likely to linger during and after the era of Trump.
Later this week, a meeting of the convention rules committee gives Trump’s opponents a chance, however faint, to somehow derail his candidacy. Meanwhile, a Republican Party that has seen a fair amount of change during more than 150 years of existence begins to assess what it will look like in the fall election campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton and in the years to come.
Trump has already changed the party, including on:
TRADE
Trump’s calls to block the proposed Trans- Pacific Partnership trade deal with Pacific Rim nations — and his threat to withdraw from the existing North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico — defy decades of Republican support for free trade.
Trump and his supporters argue that trade deals have sucked manufacturing jobs out of the United States; Republican- leaning groups such as the U. S. Chamber of Commerce say trade creates different kinds of jobs and leads to lower prices for consumers.
IMMIGRATION
Trump’s proposals to step up deportations and build a wall along the U. S.Mexico border don’t sit well with Republicans who want comprehensive immigration legislation to address immigrants who already are in the country illegally. Some GOP critics say Trump’s rhetoric is alienating the ever- growing bloc of Hispanic voters.
STYLE
Trump worked his way through a crowded field of Republican primary opponents with a slashing style that targeted rivals like “low energy” Jeb Bush, “little” Marco Rubio and “lying” Ted Cruz. Opponents responded in kind, calling Trump a “chaos candidate,” and “con man.”
The continuing resistance to Trump can be seen in the number of prominent Republicans who aren’t expected to attend this month’s convention — including the last two Republican presidents ( George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush) and the party’s most recent nominees ( John McCain and Romney) — and a “Never Trump” movement that, despite the long odds, still hopes to somehow deny him the nomination.
Trump wants to use the convention to build party unity, though he has also said that is not essential. “I have to be honest, I think I’ll win without the unity,” Trump told backers recently in Raleigh, N. C.
Frank Donatelli, a former deputy chairman for the Republican National Committee, said political conventions essentially have two purposes: to unify the party and to introduce the ticket to millions of voters watching on television. This time, he said, “it’s unclear whether they can meet those challenges.”