As Democrats debate whether President Joe Biden should run for another term, Republican officials back Donald Trump and his agenda for the next four years, according to the party’s recently released platform, which is expected to be approved at the Republican National Convention starting next Monday in Milwaukee.
The document is like no other before it. For one, it’s brief — less than 20% the length of past platforms. For another, it was reportedly edited by Trump and reads like it was, overflowing with his trademark grievances, vague promises and unique grammatical stylings. Twelve percent of all the platform’s letters are capital letters, reported The Washington Post in its article, “From a GOP Platform to a MAGA One.”
The U.S. is in “SERIOUS DECLINE,” says the platform. But Trump, who is cited 20 times, “reignited the American Spirit.” Among his promises if reelected is to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” for more oil and gas.
The platform is dedicated to “the Forgotten Men and Women of America.”
The platform opens with Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” and is dedicated to “the Forgotten Men and Women of America” whom he says have suffered due to decades of poor leadership by officials of both parties who “for decades sold our jobs to highest bidders.”
The document’s abandonment of the GOP’s four-decade-long opposition to abortion has generated the most pushback from evangelicals, including many Southern Baptists.
Meanwhile, new polling data shows Americans’ views on abortion have shifted since Roe v. Wade was overturned and more than a dozen GOP-led states instituted new restrictions. Nearly six in 10 Americans now approve abortion access for any reason.
“Evangelicals oppose Donald Trump’s shift to leave abortion policy up to the states,” reported Christianity Today, citing “a chorus of criticism and disappointment” from believers who once hailed Trump as the “most pro-life president” ever but now miss “the strong pro-life stance evangelicals have come to expect from the GOP.”
But there’s more to the platform than abortion. It will take only a few minutes to read it for yourself here, or to read CNN’s annotated version here.
The heart of the document is its “20 promises,” which includes promises to:
- “CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY”
- “END THE WEAPONIZATION OF GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”
- “PREVENT WORLD WAR THREE, RESTORE PEACE IN EUROPE AND IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AND BUILD A GREAT IRON DOME MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD OVER OUR ENTIRE COUNTRY — ALL MADE IN AMERICA.”
Some conservative evangelicals disappointed by Trump’s abortion stance have applauded his promises to:
- “CUT FEDERAL FUNDING FOR ANY SCHOOL PUSHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY, RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND OTHER INAPPROPRIATE RACIAL, SEXUAL, OR POLITICAL CONTENT ON OUR CHILDREN”
- “KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS”
But traditional small-government conservatives noted the platform’s deviation from past GOP platforms with its promise to: “FIGHT FOR AND PROTECT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WITH NO CUTS, INCLUDING NO CHANGES TO THE RETIREMENT AGE.” The platform provides no details about how its promises will be kept.
The GOP platform joins three other presentations of what could happen in a second Trump presidency:
- The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025, which Trump now disavows
- His own campaign website’s “Agenda 47,” which was created for the spring primaries, not the November election
- The website of the Center for Renewing America, which was founded by Russell Vought, a self-confessed Christian nationalist and graduate of evangelical Wheaton College who served on Trump’s White House cabinet.
Many evangelical anti-abortion leaders have criticized the back-pedaling on abortion and affirmed their continuing support for Trump while staying silent on Trump’s promise to deport millions of immigrants.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, says four more years of Trump would be better for the cause than four years of a Democrat.
Focus on the Family remains committed to abolishing all abortion procedures and medications. “We must remember that we are in this fight for the long game and the ultimate goal of making abortion unthinkable,” wrote Nicole Hunt. “Abortion-minded women need the pro-life movement to help them.”
Tony Perkins leads the Family Research Council, which was founded by Focus four decades ago. He served as a member of this year’s platform committee but complained about the process and the results in a series of fundraising emails.
Perkins complained the platform committee “convened in an abbreviated and highly choreographed meeting to adopt a new party platform” without time for discussion or the ability to make amendments.
“You know as well as I do that our political arena is becoming increasingly devoid of biblical truth,” Perkins wrote in a Thursday fundraising email that criticized the weak abortion planks of the platform.
David Barton
David Barton also served on the platform committee, saying his goal was to make sure the platform aligned with the biblical book of Genesis. He has since complained about the platform being “written by the campaign rather than the grassroots and elected platform members.”
Barton criticized the platform for presenting “the weakest position on protecting unborn life of any Republican platform since 48 years ago in 1976.” But he’s sticking with Trump anyway. “People of faith still have a clear choice in this election cycle,” he said.
Trump says laws about access to abortion should be left to the states, but anti-abortion groups know that approach has been a disaster for them thus far.
Voters in six states (California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, Ohio) have enshrined abortion access in state law. Focus is concerned that voters in six more states will weigh in on the issue this November.
Tom McClusky, an executive with the Family Research Council’s sister organization, Family Research Council Action, discussed the GOP’s retreat on abortion at this week’s National Conservatism Conference.
The Washington Examiner reported: “McCluskey was lamenting the triple whammy of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) accepting the legality of the abortion drug mifepristone, then Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) endorsing President Donald Trump’s abandonment of a national abortion ban, and then the release of the Republican Party platform, which did remove language calling for a national ban on abortions that had been in earlier platforms.”
Asked if he knew how to turn things around, McCluskey said, “I wish I had the solution because I would probably not be on this panel, I’d be out making a lot of money right now.”
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