For conservative voters who have long since fallen out of favor with former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, his somewhat softened tone Accepting the Republican nomination Thursday night was a welcome relief.
“He’s improved a lot,” said Dave Struthers, a 57-year-old farmer from Collins, Iowa, as he watched Trump’s speech in the basement of his farmhouse. “The thing I have against him is he’s so selfish — ‘Me, me, me. Me, me, me.’ I don’t hear that tonight.”
Trump, who has a long history of divisive comments, has said shoplifters should be shot immediatelysuggested the top general of the United States to be executed as a traitor and mocked husband of Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who was beaten with a hammer by a far-right conspiracy theorist.
But Thursday night in Milwaukee he wore a white bandage over his right ear, which had been pierced by a bullet from a potential hitman just days earlier, and spoke in a calmer, more relaxed tone for at least the first part of the speech, describing his experience of the shooting and calling for an end to discord, division and demonization in national politics.
Nevertheless, many of his talking points remained familiar. He claimed that Democrats were destroying America, derided the prosecutions against him as a partisan witch hunt, warned of an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border and insisted, without evidence, that murder rates in Central and South American countries were falling because they were sending their killers to the U.S.
Struthers, a Republican who raises hogs and grows soybeans and corn, supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during the primary. He said he believed Trump did good things as president but that his trade war with China was hurting agriculture, including soybean sales, since that country is a major customer.
According to him, Trump’s speech at the Republican Party convention was “more of a conversation with the American people than him yelling at them.”
As for Trump surviving the assassination attempt: “That’s another reason to support him. He’s not going to give up. He’s going to keep going.”
Alex Bueneman, 28, a maintenance technician from Oak Grove, Missouri, also said he appreciates a more moderate approach.
“While he still has the fiery words and the presence, I really think they’re trying to tone it down a little bit,” Bueneman said. “I think that’s a good thing.”
However, not everyone appreciated the speech.
“I don’t think he sounds any different than he did before the assassination attempt,” said John Frank, a 25-year-old designer from Milwaukee who calls himself a libertarian.
Frank said he doesn’t plan to vote in November, but he watched the speech with a friend anyway because “we didn’t want to miss anything big that was going to happen in Milwaukee.”
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Rio Yamat and Jake Offenhartz in Milwaukee; Jeff Roberson in St. Charles, Missouri; and Charlie Neibergall in Collins, Iowa contributed.