Will ‘Grandpa’ Trump show up tonight to unite America?

The original plan for the Republican National Convention was supposed to be straightforward.

Donald Trump, who just days earlier would have been sentenced for his felony conviction in New York, would show up on stage a martyr—having taken the slings and arrows of political persecution at the hands of a Democrat establishment hellbent on keeping him out of office for a second term.

That was then.

Now, in the midst of a sweltering summer that seems destined for the history books, after a Supreme Court ruling that punted his sentencing, the other legal cases against him in disarray and a shooting that nearly took his life, the bandaged standard-bearer of the Republican party will enter that stage Thursday night a “changed man” with a new mission, according to those who have spoken with Trump and comments he has made.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that he was rewriting his “humdinger” of a keynote address and will instead deliver “more of a unity speech.”

In a separate interview with the Washington Examiner, an uncharacteristically inward-looking Trump reflected on the opportunity before him.

“It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance,” he told the paper.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported, citing a person who spoke to the former president immediately after the shooting, that he was almost “spiritual” about what had happened—”and that’s totally not normal for him.” Trump was said to be telling those around him he wanted speakers at the convention to “dial it down, not dial it up.”

Indeed, that was evident to a degree over the first three nights in Milwaukee. While no shortage of the red meat typical tossed to the assembled delegates at any political convention—especially on the topics of crime and immigration—Trump has been cast in a softer light than usual.

Rather than focus on Trump as a businessman or politician, members of his family have delivered speeches—timed for the hour when the major television networks carry the convention live—that highlight him as…a grandfather.

“I will never forget watching my two children run up to him with their drawings and hugs for grandpa just moments before he took the elevator down in Trump Tower to address the media the day after his wrongful conviction,” Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of the former president, said in her remarks Tuesday.

“Despite everything else he had going on, he had no other focus in the entire world, just a man relishing time with his grandchildren.”

On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr., not particularly known for his pathos, gave the stage over to his 17-year-old daughter, Kai, who spoke publicly and eloquently for the first time about her relationship with her grandfather.

“To me, he’s just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents aren’t looking. He always wants to know how we’re doing in school.”

Even when he’s going through all these court cases, he always asks me how I’m doing. He always encourages me to push myself to be the most successful person I can be,” she said, as a beaming Trump looked on.

“The media makes my grandpa seem like a different person, but I know him for who he is.”

The “Grandpa Trump” strategy is a gamble—and an ironic one at that, given his opponent’s own age being in the spotlight. The Biden campaign has sought to use his advanced age to their benefit, casting the 81-year-old president as a grandfatherly figure forged with the wisdom required to bring the country together.

At the same time, there is perhaps no person in America more of a known quantity than Trump, who was already famous even before he swept onto the political scene in 2015.

In the near decade since, Trump the man has broken norm after democratic norm, relishing in the kind of divisive rhetoric he now seeks to cast aside.

Even in this presidential race, his third in a row, Trump has made retribution against his political enemies a theme of his campaign. He’s suggested jailing his opponents and going after President Biden and his family, not to mention his repeated attempts to overturn an election he lost in 2020.

“When Trump says that the country should ‘unite,’ he means ‘unite behind Trump’,” Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of political rhetoric at Texas A&M University, told Newsweek.

“If Trump really sought to unite the nation, then he would be offering to compromise with the Democratic party to solve the nation’s problems.”

She noted a brief period of magnanimity on Trump’s part after the 2016 election, when he praised Hillary Clinton for running a tough campaign and even told his supporters that the “Lock her up!” chant was no longer necessary once he had won.

But that was short-lived, Mercieca said. “Criticism made him revert back to the aggressive Trump.”

Speaking on Fox News Thursday morning, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign said his boss was a changed man focused on the opportunity in front of him: “I can tell you after last Saturday just by a quarter of an inch avoiding being killed by a gunman, President Trump tore up the speech that he had and said I need to redo this, it has to have a different tone and lay out the pathway forward for how we unite the country.”

The country will now see whether the 78-year-old Trump, sobered and softened from the attempt on his life, is capable of one more political rebirth.