Ivanka Trump is a talented spin doctor. She did a good job tonight — but then Donald opened his mouth

What was the most painful part of the final night of the Republican National Convention?

Was it when Donald J Trump said, “I want to thank my amazing daughter, and to all of my children — Ivanka, please stand up — to all of my children and grandchildren, I love you more than words can express” while Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany looked on with hungry eyes at the Chosen One?

Was it when Mitch McConnell complained, in his urgent, gravelly voice, that the Democrats “want to tell you how many hamburgers you can eat”?

Was it when Rudy Giuliani, decorated in a pinstripe suit and the tears of so many betrayed New Yorkers, described Joe Biden as a “defective candidate” and a “Trojan horse for Bernie, AOC, Pelosi, Black Lives Matter and his party’s entire left wing”, who are just waiting to bring in a host of “pro-criminal, socialist policies”?

Was it when a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah accompanied red, white and blue fireworks exploding over Washington DC as onlookers called for “four more years” of Republican rule and Cohen turned audibly in his grave?

Was it the third or fourth time someone was wheeled out during this convention to say the words “People say Donald Trump is racist, but they’re wrong”?

Was it when Ivanka, favored daughter and world-renowned spin doctor, stood up to describe herself as “the proud daughter of the people’s president” and a “defender of common sense” before telling us that her father’s “unconventional communication style” and “unfiltered tweets” actually prove how genuine he is and how sincerely he holds his beliefs? Certainly, hers was a speech and a half. After Alice Johnson, the formerly incarcerated woman who was granted clemency by Trump, walked out of the gates of the prison she’d lived in for 21 years, Ivanka told us that her father turned to her in quiet awe and said, “Imagine how many more like Alice there are.” He was humbled, she told us, by his own power, and determined to do more good, because that’s just the kind of guy he is. Do you believe it, in the cold light of day? I have my doubts. But Ivanka conjures up one hell of an image. She’s a better orator than any member of the Trump family, including her father.

And hot on the heels of Ivanka’s excellent PR came Daddy himself, sauntering down the grand steps at the back of the White House with a vice-like grip on Melania’s hand. Ah, Melania. She never quite mastered the art of looking comfortable in public next to him, did she? Still, at least she makes up for it by picking excellent slogans for her jackets.

Caressing the side of the podium in that offputting way he likes to do, in the style of a just-too-old-to-be-here banker at a college night trying to convince a young girl that he still knows what’s cool, the 45th President side-mouthed into the mic that this election, voters could either “save the American dream or allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny”. The Democrats will give a “free rein to violent anarchists and agitators and criminals,” he added. Meanwhile, he has done “more for the African American community than every president since Abraham Lincoln,” while Biden wants to “demolish the suburbs, take your guns” and abort screaming babies at nine months’ conception.

“China has chosen their candidate,” Trump continued, later adding that “China would own America” if Biden was in the Oval Office. He alluded to the “Biden-Bernie manifesto” more than once (if only) and said that “Joe” doesn’t have the “strength” to “stand up to wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie and his fellow radicals” who want to usher in “mob rule”. But by the way, he also “takes his marching orders from liberal hypocrites” who revel in “cancel culture” and hide in basements. A strange communist beast, indeed, who one minute is being wheeled out to call for the Bolshevik Revolution in North America and the next is too bleeding-heart and namby-pamby to push back against trigger warnings on social media. That’s the magic of Joe Biden, I guess.

Biden was known to have given blue-collar workers “hugs, and even kisses” said Trump in one particularly uncomfortable aside, as he smirked and winked at the crowd and they laughed back at him. Oh ho, what japes! Two men accused of various levels of unwanted touching running for the highest office in the land. Imagine that! I think I’ll laugh myself all the way to the bottom of a whiskey bottle if I think about it too hard.

Not long after that was when the fireworks started, the camera panned back to Melania, Donald said “God bless America” and the shoulder-to-shoulder, unmasked crowd in the midst of a pandemic got up to clap, cheer, hug, shake hands and generally trade germs with one another. Hallelujah powered up. The convention was finally over, leaving us with an unsettling feeling about the head-to-head debates in September and a sense that somehow we’d been duped, but it wasn’t immediately clear how.

“I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean,” wrote Leonard Cohen. “I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.” As an immigrant to the US, I watched Trump wrap up his final speech (one hour, 11 minutes) and thought the same. The scenes are getting worse and worse these days — and the aftermath of the election promises to be horrendous, no matter who wins and who accuses who of illegitimacy or electoral fraud — but there’s still something to love about America, if you close your eyes and look away from what’s happening in DC every once in a while.

Will there be after four more years?