The Republican Party’s so called midterm convention has barely begun, and it already looks like an expensive memorial service for electoral dignity. Reporting from Puck News journalist Marianna Sotomayor depicts a bizarre gathering designed less to win votes than to massage President Donald Trump’s bottomless ego.

Republicans desperately need to persuade skeptical voters that they understand the country’s economic pain. Instead, they assembled in Dallas to celebrate the deeply unpopular man dragging their candidates toward potential oblivion while consuming every remaining molecule of political oxygen.

“The convention arena had been adorned with images of Trump on every available surface in the corridors,” wrote Sotomayor. That tells voters everything they need to know about the event’s true purpose, which is worshiping the party’s Prince King rather than developing a credible November strategy.

Restaurants surrounding the arena were reportedly packed with fundraisers, ensuring plenty of opportunities for donors and politicians to conduct the usual sale of influence. Inside the arena, however, the opening crowd filled only about half the available seats, an embarrassing visual for a movement that constantly boasts about its supposed popularity.

That weak attendance should surprise nobody who has watched Trump’s standing collapse. A president hovering around 35 percent approval is not a political rocket booster, especially when roughly two thirds of the country appears sick of his chaos, cruelty, corruption, and endless personal grievances.

Republican leaders nevertheless tried to explain away the disaster. “We have an education component to what we’re doing on the campaign trail, to make sure people understand that we are moving in the right direction,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Sotomayor, framing the election as a choice between “communism and common sense.”

That tired scare tactic might thrill the party’s most committed conspiracy addicts, but it does nothing for families struggling to purchase groceries, pay rent, or cover medical bills. Voters are not rejecting Republicans because they failed to receive enough lectures from Mike Johnson about imaginary communists lurking behind the cereal aisle.

Majority Whip Tom Emmer offered another dose of wishful thinking, suggesting Republicans simply need to change public perceptions about the economy. “We got to break through somehow, and this could be that breakthrough,” he told Sotomayor before adding, “If our people show up, we’re going to win.”

The trouble for Emmer is that perception follows lived experience. Americans know what their bills look like, and no convention speech can convince a family that unaffordable necessities are suddenly affordable because Republican officials found better talking points and louder microphones.

Independent voters have abandoned the GOP in large numbers, leaving Republicans with little room for comforting turnout fantasies. Emmer previously acknowledged that his party could face trouble if voters still felt negatively about “affordability,” and those concerns are unlikely to vanish while Trump remains obsessed with tariffs, conflict, and economic disruption.

Johnson and Emmer are not fools, whatever nonsense they deliver for public consumption. They understand that vulnerable Republicans would benefit if Trump disappeared from view for two months, but the convention instead gave him both nights because apparently one marathon dose of grievance fueled rambling was insufficient.

Trump spoke for more than two hours during the first night and reportedly floated another attempt to purchase political loyalty with promises unlikely to materialize. The proposal described in the original reporting would cost an estimated $1.3 trillion, adding another staggering burden while Republicans continue pretending to care about fiscal discipline.

He also insulted Texas while Texans cheered, promoted a fantasy health care plan that remains vapor, and returned to his peculiar fixation on renaming things. It was the familiar Trump pageant, packed with boasting and empty promises but conspicuously light on solutions for ordinary people.

What apparently never arrived was a serious discussion of the economy. A search of Trump’s remarks reportedly produced no meaningful quote about affordability, the very issue Emmer had identified as essential to Republican survival in the coming election.

So much for the promised breakthrough. Republicans built a convention around the least popular figure in their party, covered the walls with his face, handed him hours of airtime, and somehow expected struggling voters to mistake the resulting cult spectacle for an economic plan.