After months of intra-party strife, the RNC formally and officially nominated Donald Trump for president in a roll call vote on Tuesday. While some were expecting protests to break out on the floor, the roll call was as charmingly inane and pointless as it always is: Each state delegation used their time in the sun to brag about college football and beef-production and claim that they were the greatest state in the nation. (Only one state, Wyoming, is actually the greatest in the nation.)
Trump’s nomination was inevitable, but it’s worth dwelling on for a moment. The Republican Party has nominated a man who is openly racist, sexist, and nativist and has normalized racist, sexist, and nativist political discourse, who has promised to order the military to commit war crimes, who knows nothing about domestic or foreign policy and has no political experience, who has promised to deport millions of people living in this country, who is, in short, totally unfit to be president of the United Sates.
While it should be noted that a number of party elites stayed home, Trump’s nomination is the result of the party’s voters, not its leadership: These voters, who have overwhelmingly chosen Trump as their nominee, will guide the party’s future, regardless of what happens in November. This is a historic and possibly cataclysmic moment for the Republican Party and for America.