At the RNC, a ring-kissing competition soothes Donald Trump’s wounds

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At first, I didn’t get it.

Earlier this week, word went out that former president Donald Trump would be a spectator at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee before accepting the party’s nomination with a speech on Thursday evening. I joked to colleagues that there was zero chance he would be content to be there and not grab a microphone.

Then I saw how it played.

The first time Mr. Trump’s people laid eyes on him since the man on that Pennsylvania rooftop tried to end his life, the nominee was standing in a hallway in the guts of the Fiserv Forum on Monday night, waiting to make a brief appearance on the convention floor. His right ear was bandaged, and soon, a handful of delegates would be sporting fake bandages in solidarity.

A live feed was projected into the convention hall to whet the crowd’s appetite. Mr. Trump looked like a cross between a football player in the tunnel and a suffering Renaissance saint illuminated by a sacred ray of light. The man who is normally bombast on legs, all heat and light and sound, looked restrained and wan, almost reluctant.

That was when I started to get it. A terrible thing had happened, and here he was among his people, and they could see that he was okay, and that was a great relief. But he was changed, too – you could see it, just look at him. And they would have to wait to hear from him.

Any celebrity who wants to hype a marriage or new baby knows that the way to do it is to pretend you don’t want to share. And Mr. Trump’s true art has always been celebrity, not deal-making.

On Tuesday, the convention theme was Make America Safe Again. But the real show was Mr. Trump’s former rivals, critics and enemies genuflecting before him, scraping themselves across the plush red carpet of the convention floor and propping themselves at the microphone to sing his praises.

Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio – all presidential primary competitors and highly visible critics of Mr. Trump at various points – lined themselves up, neat and flimsy as little paper dolls. Even lesser one-time adversaries such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tom Emmer, the Minnesota congressman whose bid to be House Speaker Mr. Trump shivved, were there.

It was Kiss The Ring And Like It day in Milwaukee.

I was standing among the delegates for the prime-time speeches, and that was when the full power of Mr. Trump’s strangely demure presence became clear.

Within the arena, what would ordinarily be the surface of a basketball court is occupied by the enormous convention stage, with delegate seating fanned out in front of it. The 100-level bowl just above is mostly ticketed guests, except for one special section across from the stage.

It’s framed in a red-starred barricade with MAKE AMERICA GREAT ONCE AGAIN emblazoned across it, and it contains three rows of pristine white armchairs. This is where Mr. Trump and his retinue sit.

The setup looks and feels like the richest guy in a small town watching a parade, or a statue from a pharaoh’s tomb, with the ancient king and the throne on which he sits carved out of the same inexorable desert stone.

As his supplicants paraded across the stage, each of them played a different role.

Mr. Cruz – whose wife is ugly and whose father may have helped kill JFK, Mr. Trump has said – was the worried uncle who just wanted to make sure you knew the score.

“Today, as a result of Joe Biden’s presidency, your family is less safe. Your children are less safe. The country is less safe,” the Texas senator said. “But here’s the good news: We can fix it. And when Donald Trump is president, we will fix it. We know this. Because he’s done it before.”

Ms. Haley, described by Mr. Trump as a globalist who attracts radical-left supporters, was the reluctant professor, brushing aside their previous clashes with an argument both pragmatic and urgent.

“For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump. But there’s more to it than that. We should acknowledge that there are some Americans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100 per cent of the time,” the former South Carolina governor said, adding, “My message to them is simple: You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 per cent of the time to vote for him.”

Mr. DeSantis – the Florida Governor who either begs on his knees for political help or wears high heels like some kind of lady, according to Mr. Trump – rolled in as the frat bro egging on his buddy in a bar fight.

“They mandated that you show proof of a COVID vaccine to go to a restaurant, but they oppose requiring proof of citizenship to cast a vote. They can’t even define what a woman is,” he sneered. “Now, Donald Trump stands in their way, and he stands up for America.”

And then little Mr. Rubio, who Mr. Trump says sweats like he just jumped into a swimming pool, showed up as the earnest young firebrand.

“We will not be alone in this fight,” the Florida senator declared. “For leading us in this fight will be a man who, although wounded and facing danger, he stood up and raised his fist and reminded us that our people and our country are always worth fighting for.”

It was impossible not to keep looking over at Mr. Trump as his loyal pledges competed in their very own boot-licking Olympics. How was he reacting? How did the person on stage seem to think he was reacting?

The man whose genius has always been his willingness to say anything had discovered the power of sitting in the emperor’s seat in the coliseum and saying not a word.

A camera kept pulling to him, projecting his face hugely. He was wearing that wide, closed-mouth grin he offers when he’s pleased by what he sees: The cat who caught the canary and can still feel the little bird flitting around in his mouth, but knows it’s not going anywhere.

Once, long ago, America hated being run by a king.

But, as the bended knees on that stage and the great man smiling beneficently from his royal box showed us, times change.