Former President Donald Trump reshaped the Grand Old Party (GOP) in 2024 with new faces at the Republican National Convention.
Trump, who tailored the GOP as a working class, America First populist party, will not be joined at the convention by some of the most familiar establishment Republican faces of the past 20 years, a signal of a transformed party under a political figure looking to complete the greatest comeback in American history.
Among those establishment members who will not appear at the RNC include:
- Former President George Bush
- Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney
- Outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT)
- Former Vice President Mike Pence
- Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
In contrast, the faces appearing at the RNC in 2024 include:
- Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH)
- President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien
- Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)
- Senate Nevada Candidate Sam Brown
- GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
- Vivek Ramaswamy
The speaker lineup reflects a new GOP, one that appears to recognize the angst of the American worker who sees the establishment as managing the decline of the United States. The working class, as the theory goes, pays taxes and bears the ultimate price in foreign lands to promote “democracy,” while the establishment enjoys cocktail parties with stock portfolios tied to the global market.
Two speakers in particular underscore the new GOP. Vance, Trump’s choice for vice president, is a hardline populist from a Midwest state. His book, Hillbilly Elegy, provides an analysis of modern American life with implications for needed policy reforms that combat the global elites’ war on the American worker. His assessment of the nation completely contradicts the ideology of many of those who will not appear at the RNC in 2024.
“President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful,” Vance said in his speech at the convention Wednesday evening. “We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man.”
O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, delivered a historic address on Monday, the first evening of the convention. The Teamsters union typically backs Democrats. During his speech, O’Brien ripped the United States Chamber of Commerce, an opponent of Trump’s economic nationalist agenda, for what he said is a war on the American worker.
“President Trump had the backbone to open the doors to this Republican convention, and that’s unprecedented. No other nominee in the race would’ve invited the Teamsters into this arena,” he said. “Now you can have whatever opinion you want, but one thing is clear: President Trump is a candidate who is not afraid of hearing from new, loud, and often critical voices. ”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
