This was Ivanka Trump's convention

(Image credit: Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published August 28, 2020

Ivanka Trump's speech on the final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention was not especially memorable. It did not need to be. Thursday and the three nights before it were her convention long before she took to the podium.

This was true for a number of reasons. The first is simply that it was for the most part a polished, professional affair. Speeches were not overlong; the last-minute Zoom ethos of the Democrats' convention was curiously absent. The RNC was a sunny, bright, well-organized affair.

The woman who is arguably the most influential child of a sitting president in American history has always found her father's base distasteful. This, I think, is the reason why this year's RNC felt utterly unlike its 2016 predecessor, with its atmosphere of doom and carnivalesque violence. The overriding theme of this convention was optimism about America over the last four years. We heard almost nothing about immigration, which polling has shown is still a top priority of white evangelical voters, or about impeachment. "American carnage" gave way to "Morning in America."