Republicans appear to have completely forgone the “unity convention” theme this week in favor of a much more divisive brand: a total call to arms.

In a prerecorded message to the convention Tuesday night, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump insisted that Democrats are “destroying our country,” and once again claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him, urging supporters not to let “what happened” that year happen again.

“We must use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats,” Trump said. “These people want to cheat, and they do cheat, and frankly it’s the only thing they do well.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump twisted an old lie into something new, trying to convince his base that Democrats are “attempting to interfere” in the 2024 presidential election.

But Trump wasn’t the only Republican stoking the flames. In his own speech, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise nodded toward a white supremacist, alt-right conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory” while baselessly advancing the idea that “Biden and Harris want illegals to vote.” House Speaker Mike Johnson shared a similar idea, telling the conference that Republicans “cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens [the Democrats] allowed to cross our borders, to harm our citizens, raid our resources, or disrupt our elections.”

Of course, undocumented immigrants (and any other noncitizens) cannot vote in U.S. elections. But that didn’t stop Texas Senator Ted Cruz—whose state overwhelmingly identifies as Hispanic—from mindlessly hopping on the bandwagon.

“[Illegal immigration] happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz said Tuesday.

Senate candidate Kari Lake, who’s running to represent 2.3 million Latino voters in Arizona, also advanced the bold-faced lie that Democrats “voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

But few summed up the aggressive mood of the convention better than West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who told conference-goers on Tuesday that the “bottom line” for Republicans is this: “We become totally unhinged if Donald Trump is not elected in November.”

Donald Trump has one of the most powerful business leaders in his corner—and might make him treasury secretary if elected.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is in the running for the Cabinet position after Trump held a meeting with him and more than 70 other top U.S. executives last month that the former president and convicted felon described as a “lovefest.”

“That was a lovefest, and I will tell you when I’m not loved because I feel that better than anybody,” he said.

Trump may have felt loved in that meeting because he promised to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent if reelected. As president, Trump was responsible for lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, a move that was praised by business leaders at the time, including Dimon. The former president told Bloomberg that he would ultimately want to lower it to 15 percent “because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.”

Dimon has inclined himself toward Trump this year after Nikki Haley, whom he previously endorsed, dropped out of the race for president. Dimon has asked Democrats to dial back their criticism of the former president, saying that Trump was in many ways right about the economy. And Trump seems to have reversed his criticism of Dimon as well, after calling the banking CEO a “highly overrated globalist” thanks to his Haley endorsement.

Despite, or perhaps because of his stature in the business world, Dimon’s credibility may be inflated. He has touted disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann, his firm paid $290 million to settle a lawsuit over his bank’s funding of Jeffrey Epstein, and JP Morgan Chase has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission during his watch. But as long as he heads a powerful Wall Street firm, he will retain credibility in financial markets, and that is why Trump will want to curry favor with him. Through Dimon, Trump may enjoy support from other CEOs, and will enjoy their financial contributions to his businesses and his campaign. The only question is whether Dimon would want the job.

President Joe Biden no longer appears to have the favor of his own party—let alone the American people.

Nearly two-thirds of registered Democrats—approximately 65 percent—want Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election, according to a survey released Wednesday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll also found that just 27 percent of Democrats felt “extremely” or “very confident” in the 81-year-old president’s mental acuity and his ability to serve effectively as president.

Nearly two dozen lawmakers have already formally called on the president to exit the race, but many more have quietly signaled similar messaging, including top Democrats such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Still, others are reportedly “not........

© New Republic