Trump’s overhaul of GOP shows his sway but leaves some on sidelines

And some of the party’s more traditional members and wealthiest donors were dismayed by J.D. Vance’s choice as vice president, given his more populist party views. Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.) lobbied against Vance but later posted a photo praising his pick.

To find public dissent at the Republican National Convention, one had to look away from Milwaukee — where the convention reflected, almost in every way, a new Republican Party and a nominee that had solidified his support and almost totally neutralized his critics.

“I’ve been to six conventions, and I’ve never seen it this unified. You’re MAGA or you’re not. Where are the anti-MAGA people? You’re either MAGA or you’ve come to grips with it,” said Republican donor Dan Eberhart, as he surveyed the convention scene Wednesday afternoon.

Eberhart was right. As the four-day MAGA fest ended Thursday night, Trump critics, for the most part, were glaringly absent — they either stayed home or quietly wandered around events on the outside of the convention hall, lamenting what their party once was. Some former Trump foes with more traditional GOP views, like former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, came to the convention and bent the knee, endorsing Trump.

The living previous nominees of the party skipped the big event. So did former House speaker Paul D. Ryan, who represented Wisconsin. Former speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio only came briefly, where he was spotted at a warehouse party. The Bush family — neither the former president nor the ex-Florida governor — was not present. Many of Trump’s former top aides and Cabinet officials weren’t here. Neither was Ronna McDaniel, the longtime chairwoman of the party, who went on a trip. Former vice president Mike Pence posted photos of himself online in the woods in Montana.

“I certainly wasn’t going to come and celebrate Donald Trump, that’s for sure,” said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, who said he had attended eight conventions, including when he was a White House intern for Vice President Spiro Agnew. “I think I’m in good company missing this one, because there are a lot of us.”

Republicans in exile virulently object to the current version of the GOP both personally and politically, they say. Trump has veered dramatically from traditional Republican orthodoxy, taking a more isolationist approach to the world and supporting tariffs. But many said their real opposition to the former president is his character — his false claims the election was stolen, his role in fueling the Jan. 6 mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol, his felony convictions, the opportunists he surrounds himself with and the way he has elevated fringe figures and conspiracy theorists. They also abhor the way he talks about his critics.

Some who worked for Trump or were previously prominent Republicans came to the convention, but only to appear on cable news networks as critics. Marc Short and Michael Steele, Pence’s former chief of staff and the former head of the Republican National Committee, respectively, were in town but only to appear on TV.

Short mingled inside the convention hall with Republicans, joking about what the new vice president might have in store. Short said he was aghast watching speeches where NATO was faulted for Vladimir Putin’s invasion, where tariffs are supported, where a union leader criticizes corporations and where Republicans “walk away from life and traditional marriage and stop defending Taiwan.”

“None of this is in any way conservative,” he said.

As Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump communications aide turned critic, sat on the set of CNN, she said what Trump had pulled off was impressive — even as she disliked much of it.

“There’s been a total realignment of the GOP from traditional conservatism to MAGAism. The GOP is unquestionably Trump’s party, complete with converts (Haley, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina), the new guard of rising stars (Vance, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders), and major reversals on long-standing GOP policy. Trump is arguably the politically strongest he’s been since he walked down the escalator in 2015,” she said.

Mike DuHaime, a prominent GOP consultant who skipped the convention and is opposed to Trump, agreed the former president has been effective. He has worked for former senator John McCain (Ariz.) and ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie and a range of other Republicans, all who had been attacked by Trump or lost to Trump.

“He’s putting a stamp on the party in a way he didn’t in 2020 or 2016,” DuHaime said. “I think he is transforming the policy of the party for the long run. Some of this is going to outlast Trump whether he wins or loses. It’s less about Trumpism and more what the party will stand for.”

There were peripheral efforts to remind people in Milwaukee that not everyone inside the GOP is a Trump cheerleader.

Kyle Sweetser, a construction contractor in Mobile, Ala., who identifies as a Reagan Republican, said he started paying closer attention to Trump’s policies in 2022 and realized he wasn’t a traditional conservative on foreign and economic policy. Sweetser said he saw in his own business how Trump’s tariffs caused higher prices and unavailability for some products such as roll-up garage doors.

“I would like to try to convince people, hey, Trump isn’t a Republican. He’s not a Republican at all. He’s a MAGA populist,” said Sweetser, who is appearing in ads for the super PAC Republican Voters Against Trump. “I don’t even know what you’d want to call his foreign policy, but I call it left of [Joe] Biden. His trade policy is something that Bernie Sanders would have supported. A principle of conservatism is free trade. He’s against that. He’s against free markets.”

Another anti-Trump Republican appearing in digital ads and billboards, Steve Clark of Madison, Wis., said he wrote in Pence rather than vote for Trump in 2016. But he earned his vote in 2020 based on his job as president. Then, Clark said his view changed with Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in that election.

“What really brought me over the edge is how the MAGA folks just bought into that,” he said. “So it’s not just Trump, but it’s Trump plus the MAGA people.” He added: “I can’t support Trump and won’t stand for this. I’m fed up with Biden, I’m fed up with the whole thing. … Let’s go back to the Reagan Republican style. We can’t bury our heads in the sand. MAGA conservatives, the Republican Party has left me.”

The new Trump party was on display this week inside the Trade Hotel, where pro-Trump lawmakers, media figures such as Tucker Carlson, Trump aides, lawyers and hangers-on, family members and others gathered at a bar. Some mocked the critics who had worked against Vance’s vice-presidential aspirations, while others plotted for a second term and what positions they might get.

Trump allies said they were not concerned about the old guard of the party, which they said had let in too many immigrants, started too many wars and had not done enough to fight for workers.

Michael Whatley, the chair of the GOP, said he was happy to steer a new kind of Republican Party under Trump. A longtime GOP official and former lobbyist, Whatley acknowledged the GOP had changed significantly under Trump, but he said it was for the better.

“We are a blue-collar party. You’ve seen it here in the convention. You’ve seen it throughout the course of President Trump’s campaign. The Democratic Party has traditionally been that, but they have given it up,” Whatley said. “What we’re seeing is unity in the Republican Party that I have not seen in generations.”

Republicans here focused on the people who had never attended a convention before, particularly Black men they are seeking to win the election.

Gerald Maze, a Black man,, said he had been a Democrat until Trump ran. “All my family in Louisiana are Democrats,” he said.

Maze said he was inspired by watching Trump because he wanted to get rid of “nonsense” and make the country rich again. He said he was less concerned about traditional GOP policy positions, but he cared about border security.

Maze said he would not have been inclined to vote for any other Republican, such as McCain or Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Now, he said, he has more friends who are interested in Trump.

“It’s a wave,” he said.

Jack Blakely, a Republican activist from Virginia, saw the Vance pick as the capstone to a transformation he’s been awaiting since he first waded into GOP politics at 19.

The old three-legged stool of Reaganite conservatism was national defense, social conservatives and the economic stuff, he said.

“It’s the first time since I got involved all the way back that the new Republican Party has firmly taken shape,” Blakely, 37, a Hanover County resident and member of the state party’s governing board, said as he rode a bus back to his hotel late Wednesday night after Vance’s speech. “And that’s what we saw — that’s what we saw tonight.”

Blakely added that there were some trying to convince themselves the GOP was going to boomerang back to the way it once was, “who think that what’s happening is some kind of fad or like some kind of fever that’s gonna break.”

“It’s not. This is a brand new party, and it’s never been this unified,” he said.