Milwaukee, Wis. — That was short-lived. Fewer than 50 hours after former President Donald Trump narrowly avoided a sniper’s bullet to the head, the promise to tone down the rhetoric was off. Corporate media couldn’t hold a moment of silence longer than it could hold its breath And to anchors and pundits whose careers are built on hating Trump, letting up on the hyperbole felt like both.

We’ve seen these little pauses before. When major and unexpected things happen, like Trump winning in 2016, you sometimes catch a short respite. The more thoughtful reporters wonder what the event means for their country and how it computes with their own prior assumptions. They wonder where their role went wrong and even try a little introspection. Then, a couple of their pals hop on Twitter or X and start spitting vitriol, and everyone remembers themselves and gets back in line. The moment is over, and nothing has changed.

We’re just days from the promises to turn down the temperature in the country. Talking to dozens of people at the convention, no one even believed them this time.

The morning after Trump’s announcement of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, Joe Scarborough was on TV threatening to quit if his bosses ever pulled him off the air again.

NBC executives reportedly made up something about going with a news feed Monday morning out of fear that Scarborough’s guests would say something crazy about the assassination attempt. By that afternoon, as I shuffled through the heightened security surrounding the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, I caught some MSNBC pundit claiming on TV that Vance would create “a blueprint for locking in minority white rule for decades to come.”

Naïve but well-meaning people will point out that Vance’s wife, with whom he has two children, is Indian-American. They don’t realize none of that matters to the type of pundits who say this sort of thing three days after a murder at a Trump rally. Turns out the executives were right about their indecent guests — they’re just not in charge of the asylum.

And that wasn’t all. As soon as that “blueprint” guest rotated off the screen, host Nicolle Wallace turned to her studio guests to suggest Vance wanted women in abusive marriages because he criticized how easily people can get divorced these days

The night before, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was on the same network saying Vance “simply believes ... we would be better off if we just had one person in charge and the rest of us were stripped of our rights, and if we put men back in charge, and if we created this nation in a new cloak of Christian nationalism.”

“He is being picked in part because he is going to help change this transition away from democratic norms,” Murphy continued, “this transition to a white, patriarchal, Christian-dominated nation.”

“They want to deny your freedom to vote,” President Joe Biden told a crowd at the NAACP national convention Tuesday night before going in for the zinger: “They want to prosecute political enemies.”

And we’re only on the second day since Trump’s nomination. We’re still within the same week in which a bullet hit Trump in the ear, missing his brain by millimeters. We’re just days from the promises to turn down the temperature in the country.

The thing is: Talking to dozens of people at the convention, no one even believed them this time.

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The fire rises: Compact: The promise of pro-labor conservatism

Monday was a good night for a Republican realignment many thought dead after eight years and only two authentically allied senators to show for it. Vance was selected as VP, and the president of a teamsters’ union spoke at the RNC. Sen. Josh Hawley (R- Mo.) writes:

Suffice it to say, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien’s speech came as something of a shock at the Republican National Convention Monday night. The commentariat couldn’t believe he was there. Many of the delegates couldn’t believe how much they agreed with him. As more than one delegate said to me, “That guy makes a lot of sense.”

... Republican elites may have sold out to Big Business in years past, but their voters never did. From Missouri to Ohio to Florida, states where Republicans compete and win are home to millions of working people who back the GOP. Many belong to unions or have friends and family who do. They get it: Unions are a vital piece of the fabric of a nation that depends on working people.