After weeks of speculation and teasers, hints of A-list stars and promises of razzle dazzle, the programme for the Republican National Convention finally arrives on the eve of proceedings. At the last possible moment. And if you were expecting Donald Trump to remake the GOP election-year gathering in his own image, well, you won’t be disappointed. In fact the week’s convention is looking a lot like an episode of a new reality TV show: At Home with the Trumps. Six are among the 20 headline speakers.
On Monday we have his wife and possible future first Lady Melania discussing how to ‘make America safe again’. Until now she has preferred cosy TV chats to stump speeches, managing only a 90-second effort in Milwaukee. Tuesday brings Tiffany (daughter by his second wife Marla Marples) followed by Donald Trump Jr (first child with first wife Ivana). Then on Wednesday it is Eric Trump (third child with Ivana) on the subject of ‘making America first again’. And on Thursday, we get Ivanka (Donald’s eldest daughter and probably the most impressive of the brood) before finally we get to the presumptive nominee himself. Presumably after putting his children front and centre, he’ll be proving once and for all that he is now the Daddy of the Republican party.
As for the rest of the programme, well it’s hard not to notice that it is not quite as glittering as we had been led to believe. The Republican Party’s favourite celebs – such as Clint Eastwood and Jon Voight – are nowhere to be seen. The promised Don King (‘a great friend of mine’), the flamboyant boxing promoter, is also absent. Embarrassingly, Tim Tebow, a former American football star turned conservative speaker who was shaping up to be a big draw, said he was surprised to find himself being talked up as a keynote performer. ‘It’s amazing how fast rumours fly, and that’s exactly what it is: a rumour,’ he wrote on Instagram.
Still, if you remember TV comedies of the seventies and eighties or are across the further reaches of reality TV and daytime soaps then there will be some familiar faces. Scott Baio – he of Happy Days and later Charles in Charge – has made it on to the prime-time speaker programme, which informs us that as a young man he campaigned for Ronald Reagan in perhaps one of the most tenuous efforts to cast the Donald as heir the Gipper. Willie Robertson, the big-bearded outdoorsman who stars with his family in Duck Dynasty, will also be appearing. There are plenty of more conventional, political figures taking the stage – defeated rivals for the Republican nomination including Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz – but many more of the party’s big beasts, such as the Bushes, have pressing engagements with sunloungers elsewhere.
All of which enforces the idea that this will be a convention like no other in Republican history. The Trump family and a host of political outsiders will all be at the centre of the next five days in Cleveland, Ohio. And while an unconventional convention may well have been Mr Trump’s intention – ‘It’s very important to put some showbiz into a convention, otherwise people are going to fall asleep’ is how he has put it – it’s hard not to look at the lineup and conclude that the billionaire braggart has promised much and come up short. Not for the first time in his business and political careers.
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