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The triumphant scenes of unity and glee from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee might look convincing, but let’s not forget that the party’s actual policies — and its 78-year-old nominee — are not popular.

Organizers have staged the event almost like a regal coronation, as if Donald Trump had already taken the throne and won the election. The party smoothed all the sharp edges off its platform, making it even more difficult to tell what Republicans stand for except fealty to Trump. Wednesday’s speech by vice-presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio) was so heavy on Rust Belt economic populism that at times he seemed to be channeling the Senate’s fiercest progressive, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Beneath it all, however, is the same old GOP that remains wedded to policies most Americans reject.

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One glaring example is abortion. Six out of 10 Americans believe overturning Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, was “a bad thing,” according to Gallup data. Even voters living in GOP strongholds such as Kansas and Ohio have passed ballot initiatives to restore that right on the state level.

This year’s Republican platform omits the party’s long-standing call for a federal abortion ban while not actually ruling it out. Just this one passage will concern anyone who wants to protect the reproductive rights that remain: “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process, and that the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”

That may sound anodyne, but it’s not. It is an invitation to Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws establishing fetal personhood. In a worst-case scenario, that could prohibit not only all abortions but also the procedures used for in vitro fertilization. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement that it was “important that the GOP reaffirmed its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment.”

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In its economic vision, the party is similarly out of step. In 2017, when Trump had majorities in both houses of Congress, he pushed through massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Now that the GOP is trying to portray itself as championing the working class, the platform eschews the party’s traditional embrace of big business. But only for public consumption.

Despite all the populist virtue-signaling from the convention podium, Trump has made clear that his economic policy is for sale to the highest bidder. In a meeting with billionaire campaign donors, he reportedly promised to keep their taxes low by extending those tax cuts, some of which would otherwise expire at the end of next year. In a meeting with oil company executives, Trump asked for $1 billion in campaign donations and promised to reverse President Biden’s environmental policies, including the transition to electric vehicles.

On guns, the party adamantly resists any legislative or regulatory effort to keep weapons of war out of civilian hands — even after its standard-bearer was nearly killed Saturday by a would-be assassin wielding an AR-style rifle. Convention delegates wearing bandages on their ears to emulate Trump might want to take a minute to reflect on just what those gauze pads mean.

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In fact, the Republican Party opposes and routinely blocks common-sense gun control measures that are supported by huge majorities of Americans — universal background checks, red-flag laws, safe-storage laws. The delegates in Milwaukee clearly do not care what the rest of the nation might think: They cheered approvingly when the Yale-educated Vance spoke of finding 19 loaded handguns stashed around the home of his elderly “Mamaw,” or grandmother, telling yet another story to try to bolster his faux hillbilly credentials.

The larger disconnect between the Republican Party and the rest of the country was illustrated by another line in Vance’s speech: “My friends, tonight is a night of hope. A celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again.”

The GOP is selling a rose-colored past that never was. What is the “once” Vance refers to? Does he mean decades ago, before computerization and robotics eliminated thousands of blue-collar jobs that could never possibly return? Does he mean the time when the nation was less culturally diverse? Does he mean the years of the Trump administration, which ended with the covid-19 pandemic and a worldwide economic crash?

Democrats absolutely can win this election because popular opinion is on their side. They just have to get out of their own way.

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