SHORTLY after Donald Trump was confirmed as the Republican nominee, a pair of men wearing straw boaters wandered around outside the convention centre, weighing up the merits of tacos versus hot dogs. A man wearing an elephant hat was being filmed by a woman on her mobile phone, while two women wearing red skirts with white elephants on them stood nearby. People held doors open for each other. This was a transformative moment in the history of one of the world’s great political parties, but it hardly seemed so to those enjoying Cleveland’s evening sunshine while the roll call of state delegates concluded inside. There was no Wagnerian soundtrack, just some snatches of KC and the Sunshine Band drifting out from the hall. This is how a big moment in history sounds.
At the beginning of the convention, Donald Trump’s campaign manager said that his candidate was planning to copy Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign, presenting himself as the law-and-order candidate. That election saw the birth of the Southern Strategy, which exploited white resentment after the Civil Rights Act. It saw violence at the Democratic convention in Chicago, the race riots in 11 mostly northern cities that accelerated the flight of whites to the suburbs, and protests against the Vietnam war. America in 2016 is not like America in 1968. Violent crime has fallen by more than half over the past 20 years, the economy is growing at a steady, unspectacular rate, illegal border crossings are at a low level, there are signs of racial progress for those who want to see them. Outside the convention, the violence that many predicted has yet to materialise.
The country described within the Quicken Loans Arena is very different. It is a lawless, borderless place, threatened by terrorists and run by crooks. The most memorable moments of the first evening came in painful speeches given by bereaved parents, whose children had been killed by illegal immigrants or by terrorists in Libya. “I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son,” said one. This stuff was interspersed with bizarre moments from some formerly famous people, notable only for their willingness to say nice things about the nominee. “Let’s make America America again,” implored Scott Baio, an actor from “Happy Days”, which broadcast its final episode in 1984. A former underwear model went from praising Mr Trump on stage to declaring in a TV studio that Barack Obama was a Muslim.
While all this was going on, Mr Trump gave interviews that drew attention away from his own convention. Even when he is the star of the show, it seems, he cannot bear it when someone else’s face is on screen.
Evening two was supposed to be dedicated to the theme of jobs, but it was mostly about putting Mrs Clinton behind bars. The shouts of “Guilty!” and “Lock her up!” were loudest when Chris Christie spoke. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who has thrown in his lot with Mr Trump, was booed by the crowd. Paul Ryan, the House majority leader, gave a strange speech that flirted with praising Mr Trump, and then with condemning him, but ultimately did neither. The elected Republican who seemed most in tune with the mood was Jeff Sessions, who nominated Mr Trump with a tirade against “Obamatrade”. A woman who runs Mr Trump’s winery got a prime-time speaking slot, as did two of Mr Trump’s children. Ben Carson said something about Lucifer.
Thus far this convention has suggested that the Trump campaign is too strange, amateurish and pessimistic to triumph. The most persuasive case your correspondent has heard to the contrary came from Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster who worked for Ted Cruz in the primary. Mr Wilson says that the clashes between Trump supporters and protesters in Chicago in March—when Mr Trump announced and then cancelled a rally in a heavily African-American neighbourhood—moved the Cruz campaign polls away from their candidate towards Mr Trump by ten points almost overnight. The Republican nominee, he concluded, has the ability to create the conditions that favour him, by encouraging disorder and then promising to dispel it, in a way that no other candidate could. This is one way he could possibly win, but it remains unlikely: there do not seem to enough white, high-school educated voters to make his current strategy work.
To win in November, he also requires the acquiescence of other voter groups. This seems a more plausible route. As voters get even more fed up with this election they may decide that both candidates are as bad as each other, or merely decide to roll the dice out of boredom. If that happens, it would be the most absent-minded political revolution in American history.