Trump’s former rivals bury their criticism to celebrate all-powerful GOP leader

CNN —

Once the leader was on his throne, the ritual capitulation could begin.

Donald Trump looked on with an ethereal gaze Tuesday as a parade of Republican presidential candidates whose dreams he crushed staged a parade of the vanquished at the Republican National Convention. On another night awash in emotion after Trump escaped an assassination attempt just days before, speakers joined a choreographed attempt to soften his hardman image, portraying him as a caring and even benevolent, leader, boss and grandfather while smoothing the rougher edges of his populist and authoritarian worldview.

The message on night two in Milwaukee was double-edged and impossible to miss: this is indisputably and irrevocably Trump’s party now and the GOP is united in pursuit of victory.

“Donald Trump has my full endorsement, period,” said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who warned during primary season that Trump would foment global and political chaos and who declared in February, “I feel no need to kiss the ring.” Her genuflection, which came shortly after Trump made another triumphant entrance into the arena, might have come through gritted teeth, but it closed off the unfinished business of an acrimonious primary race that saw the former UN ambassador win hundreds of thousands of votes long after her campaign ended.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once billed himself as Trumpism without the pandemonium and as a potential president who could actually enact the MAGA agenda. But on Tuesday night, he implored the crowd, “Let’s make the 45th President of the United States the 47th President of the United States.”

DeSantis, whom Trump first saw as a protégé, and then a traitor, drew a rare guffaw from the ex-president at someone