\n<\/p>\n
Over the last few months, in the run-up to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, the party\u2019s official Instagram page has been a running feed of MAGA iconography. There are illustrations of a buff Donald Trump riding a stallion and waving an American flag; of Trump in a cowboy hat on a packet of Marlboro Reds. The president isn\u2019t on the ballot in November, but the Republican National Committee made it explicit: This would be, in the words of chairman Joe Gruters, \u201cTrumpapalooza.\u201d<\/p>\n
So you can imagine my confusion when I arrived at the convention in the blazing Texas heat\u2014temperatures cracked 100\u00b0 on Wednesday\u2014to find no sign of the president on the jumbotron outside of the arena. Where was our leader\u2019s mug? I was assured this function is being held in celebration of him. After all, Trump ordered up the convention, a first for the Republican Party, and commanded the party to build the two-day event around his accomplishments.<\/p>\n
My nerves were eased upon entry. The media credentials\u2014the card I had to wear around my neck to access the event\u2014featured a large photo of the president. Inside was a glittering dedication to Trump that would have made Rafael Trujillo blush. The arena\u2019s corridors were dotted with blow-up photos of the president in the Oval Office or pumping his fist in the air in Butler. The merchandise stand sold hats declaring \u201cTRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING,\u201d mousepads depicting Trump the cowboy straddling a dashing horse, and one book: Eric Trump\u2019s Under Siege: My Family\u2019s Fight to Save Our Nation.<\/em> One elderly woman wore a mini-dress made entirely of printed-out photos of Trump taped together. We may have been in Texas, but the MAGA hats outnumbered the Stetsons. They called for making all manner of nouns great again, from \u201cFarmers\u201d to \u201cAlabama.\u201d A portly man with a handlebar mustache, wearing a loose golf polo and tight pants, wore a \u201cMake America Hot Again\u201d cap.<\/p>\n This is what Trump wanted. Typically, in a midterm election year when the president\u2019s approval ratings are hovering in the low 30s as he wages an intractable war abroad that\u2019s raising prices at home, a political party would urge its candidates to focus on their own races and put some distance between their campaigns and the White House. Trump rejected this approach, preferring to embrace the Democratic strategy of making the midterm election about him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n