DALLAS—The Republicans’ two-day “Midterm convention” opened in Dallas Sept. 9 and featured a promise by Trump, made after two-thirds of the audience had already left the arena, that he would send every American a $5,000 check if the GOP wins the midterm elections.
Vice President Vance defended the promise when he spoke with the press, saying that the administration wanted to share the benefits of the tariffs with the broad public. He failed to mention that the corporations have already grabbed reimbursements for what they paid in tariffs, not waiting to share it with their customers.
In a rambling keynote address—including comments on basketball and on the bad suits of his favored Texas U.S. Senate candidate, Ken Paxton—President Trump also promised voters that gas prices will drop to $2 per gallon when the war in Iran ends, which he said would end also if Republicans win the midterm elections.
Even White House insiders have reportedly told Trump the war may go on until well after he is out of office in two years.
Left unsaid by Trump on the issue of gasoline prices is that they are controlled by the OPEC oil cartel and Trump’s corporate campaign contributors, including executives of Big Oil who contributed heavily to his campaign.
He called for renaming the Strait of Hormuz after himself and falsely claimed that the U.S. is in control of that important point through which much of the world’s fossil fuel supply must pass. The Strait has been closed by the Iranians but was open before Trump started the war.
Trump’s ratings in most recent public polls show just one-third of voters support him. Voters have even turned negative on his signature issues, the economy and immigration.
Meanwhile, despite squabbles over protest guidelines and staging with the Dallas Police Department, marches on the arena were scheduled for September 10. That police presence will cost the city an estimated $1.8 million, the only spending figure disclosed for the convention, as its organizers are keeping the donor and sponsor list secret.
The Dallas-Fort Worth chapters of the May Day Alliance and the National Alliance Against Racism and Repression planned to lead the afternoon protests, which will also include local Democrats, union and civil rights leaders, and other progressive groups. Fox “News,” a Trump propaganda organ, claimed “antifa” would show up, too.
“The Republican Convention is coming to Dallas, and we will be in the streets to say NO to the Trump agenda,” the May Day group said of the planned 1 p.m. Central Time event, starting in Pike Park and parading towards the arena—even without a police parade permit.
“All eyes will be on Texas” for the convention, May Day added in its call for participants. “Dallas wants to make sure the country and the world sees the truth: We don’t want the Trump agenda.
“We will be outside this convention to hold Trump responsible for the ICE murders of people like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, responsible for the police murders of people like the unarmed teenager shot down in Austin, for the families torn apart, for the wars that rob our pocketbooks to kill innocent people around the globe, for the attacks on teachers, and on and on. We won’t allow this convention to quietly maintain the lie that these policies are popular or justified.”
Protest organizers also expect 5,000-10,000 people for a peaceful “We The People” rally at Dallas City Hall on the evening of the 10th, as Trump closes the convention with another speech.
The Next Generation Action Network, which obtained that rally permit, said participants would be “standing up for democracy” and for “vulnerable communities that have felt targeted or marginalized by the policies and rhetoric of this administration.”
“This is why we’ve come together: To reject hate, to reject division, to reject political rhetoric that is formed in hate speech,” Kardal Coleman, Dallas County Democratic Party chair, told a pre-convention news conference the week before.
“We reject political violence, and so we are coming together to make sure that we have a safe gathering, a rally organized by Texans, put together by Texans.”
Democrats also staged their own convention counter-programming, at both a party dinner on convention eve and at a booth across the street from the arena. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., keynoted the dinner on the evening of September 9, flanked by Texas Democrats.
“Nothing Republicans say over the next two days is going to change how clinically deranged the GOP has become. And they chose the wrong place to hold this clown show of theirs because a new generation of candidates is rewriting the rules of Texas politics,” said Pritzker, who is coasting to re-election this fall in Illinois and eyeing a 2028 Democratic presidential run.
There’s also an irony in the convention being in Dallas. In 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Democratic President John F. Kennedy there, and in 1984, the last time the GOP held a regular nominating convention in Dallas, the city was a radical right-wing Republican hotbed. Now, it votes blue in what is still a red state overall.
And Trump’s favored U.S. Senate candidate, controversial and scandal-ridden state Attorney General Paxton, is tied with the Democratic nominee, state legislator James Talarico, in Texas polls. Talarico has at least $31 million in the bank, while Paxton has $9 million, not counting the $10 million Trump’s MAGA Inc. campaign finance committee just sent him.
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