Why are Republicans pretending that Trump is a nice guy?

One of the most baffling things about last week's virtual Democratic National Convention was the bizarre insistence upon what a nice man Joe Biden is. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought that the most important issue in the 2020 presidential election was whether the eventual president was the kind of person who will remember your birthday.

At the time I suggested that this line of argument was, if not mistaken, at least irrelevant. Surely no one who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 did so because he was under the impression that the former Celebrity Apprentice star was going to send you flowers after you have a bad day.

On Monday night's opening of the Republican National Convention we were told over and over again that the president is kinder, sweeter, more empathetic and compassionate than his opponent. We heard it from Rep. Jim Jordan, the gleefully mean-spirited GOP point man during the extended Russia-Mueller mania, from his colleague Rep. Steve Scalise, and from Kimberly Guilfoyle. Even Herschel Walker got in on the action.

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All of this was at odds with the terrifying, at times chiliastic stakes for the next election referred to by other speakers, including some of those who seemed otherwise committed to the Trump-as-nice-guy line. If you really believe this is a war against evil incarnate, that "the Democrats will destroy anyone they deem a heretic," why would you want a nice guy on your side? Surely the reasoning should go in the other direction, that in your battle against the forces of darkness you would want to elect a tough guy, someone who occasionally says mean things about his opponents and doesn't really care about your feelings.