The new GOP platform is light on specifics, big on Trump. Washington RNC delegates like it that way.

MILWAUKEE – Two men stood outside the gates of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, one on each side of a mass of people inching through a security checkpoint, and put on display what may be the biggest divide in the otherwise unified delegates who had approved a new party platform the previous day.

One spoke into a microphone to project his voice across the crowd, imploring his fellow Republicans to revise the platform to include support for a nationwide ban on terminating a pregnancy. The other held a sign that called abortion “human sacrifice” and the “the Democrats’ sacrament,” but he said the issue should be left to the states, agreeing with the official position of Donald Trump, the former president and newly minted GOP nominee.

Inside the arena on the first two days of the convention, Republicans appeared virtually unanimous in their support for the party platform. The 16-page document bears Trump’s unmistakable style, full of exclamation points and all-caps promises to “SEAL THE BORDER,” “END INFLATION” and “UNITE OUR COUNTRY BY BRINGING IT TO NEW AND RECORD LEVELS OF SUCCESS.”

In contrast, the party’s 2016 platform was 66 pages long and mentioned abortion 35 times. The new platform includes that word just once, in a pledge to oppose late-term abortion, which was already restricted in most states before three Trump-appointed justices helped the Supreme Court overturn nationwide abortion protections in 2022.

Since then, GOP-controlled state legislatures have passed a wave of bills to outlaw abortion earlier in pregnancy. That has proved to be a political liability for Republicans, as support for abortion access has helped Democrats to several electoral wins since 2022.

Rob Linebarger, a delegate from Liberty Lake, said the platform doesn’t mean the GOP supports abortion. When critics point to the lack of specifics, he said, “They’re inferring, I guess, that Trump is for abortion except late-term abortion because that’s in the platform. I don’t read it that way.”

President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats agree with that assessment and have asserted that Trump would still ban abortion nationwide, even if he says otherwise to improve his chances of getting elected. Democrats have also sought to tie Trump to Project 2025, a group at the conservative Heritage Foundation that includes several of his former aides who produced a 922-page plan presented as a blueprint for a second Trump administration.

That document proposes using federal power to restrict abortion at the federal level. Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 in a post on his Truth Social platform in which he claimed to “have no idea who is behind it,” despite speaking positively about the group’s plans in 2022.

“I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” Trump wrote July 5. “Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

The GOP didn’t bother to craft a platform in 2020, letting Trump’s words and actions define what it meant to be a Republican while ignoring differences within the party. This year’s platform effectively formalized that approach.

Eileen Sobjack, a member of the platform committee from Whatcom County, said Trump took the unusual step of personally calling the group to edit the document. The former teacher said she understands how important it is to communicate in language that people will understand and “not talk over people.”

“It’s not legislation; it’s our principles, our overarching principles as a party,” Sobjack said. “We need to be able to impart common sense to a variety of Americans at different levels, and the other thing is that it needs to be simple right now, because everybody’s on their phone and they text little phrases. You know, it’s just a different time.”

Candy Erickson, vice chair of the Grant County GOP and a member of the 2016 RNC platform committee, said the slimmed-down platform is a good way to bring more voters into the Republican Party.

“I think compromise is something that Republicans are learning,” Erickson said. “Conservatives are still conservatives. I’m very conservative, but I’m willing to agree with a compromise as long as you don’t take away the value that I live under.”

For the most part, the new platform eschews specific policy proposals in favor of the vague yet assertive language Trump has made a centerpiece of his political persona. For instance, it promises to “defeat inflation and quickly bring down all prices,” although economists generally agree that such deflation – not just stopping further price increases – would cause a recession and more unemployment.

“We will destroy inflation,” Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, co-chair of the platform committee, said Monday. “We are going to send a cruise missile right into the heart of it.”

Republicans would reverse inflation, according to the platform, by “unleashing” all sources of energy, including oil, gas and nuclear power. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of crude oil, and President Joe Biden on July 9 signed a bipartisan bill – backed by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Spokane and other Northwest Republicans – aimed at ramping up nuclear power.

The other pillars of the GOP plan to tackle inflation are cutting regulations and “wasteful federal spending,” stopping illegal immigration and achieving “peace through strength,” lowering global commodity prices by resolving foreign policy crises.

Trump’s influence on the party doesn’t end with abortion. On Monday, the longest speaking slot went to union leader Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, marking a break in Democrats’ traditional alliance with organized labor. In remarks that drew relatively muted applause from the crowd, O’Brien praised Trump’s “backbone” and said no other Republican would have invited his union to speak at the RNC.

“The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption,” O’Brien said. “We must put workers first. What could be more important to the security of our nation than a long-term investment in the American worker?”

On immigration, Trump and the GOP promise to “seal the border” and begin “the largest deportation program in American history.” They also pledge to use “extreme vetting” to “keep foreign Christian-hating Communists, Marxists, and Socialists out of America.”

Other items in the platform’s table of contents include “BUILD THE GREATEST ECONOMY IN HISTORY,” “PROTECT SENIORS” and “BRING BACK THE AMERICAN DREAM.”

“You don’t have to spell all these things out completely,” Sobjack said. “We can all support our different opinions. I’m adamantly pro-life. I’m adamantly for one man, one woman – I’m talking personally. We’re talking about a Republican Party that cares and has respect for all of our Americans. And I believe that’s what this platform reflects.”

Trump remade the GOP platform; some wonder what it means to be Republican