“Everyone should unite behind me”: Day 3 of my RNC Diary

  • 18 July, 2024
  • Politics

Unite the right

A regular feature of the convention is for the vanquished candidate to pay public homage to the victor. This time it was the turn of Nikki Haley, who put up a fierce fight for the nomination, and was telling primary voters only months ago that Trump was “unhinged” and incapable of winning a general election. Wandering into the Kentucky delegation’s hospitality box to watch the action with Mitch McConnell, my welcome was considerably warmer than Haley’s distinctly mixed initial reception from the floor.

“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity,” she began amid occasional hooting. “I’ll start by making one thing perfectly clear. Donald Trump has my strong endorsement.” That improved things considerably.

Haley was perhaps the ideal messenger for the many voters who see this election as a choice between the lesser of two evils. She said she wanted to speak to Americans “who don’t agree with Donald Trump a hundred per cent of the time,” adding “I happen to know some of them.” A vote for Biden effectively meant a vote for a President Harris, she said. “If we have four more years of Biden – or a single day of Kamala Harris – our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump.”

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