RNC committee adopts Trump-backed platform, revealing top 'America First' priorities

The Republican National Committee's platform committee reportedly voted 84-18 on Monday to adopt former President Donald Trump's proposed 2024 convention platform, thereby confirming and outlining the GOP's "America First" priorities headed into the election — as well as what issues will be effectively discarded moving forward.

RNC Chair Michael Whatley noted that the platform "is a bold roadmap that will undo the devastating damage that Joe Biden's far-left policies have done to this country, power President Trump to a historic victory in November, and Make America Great Again."

From the outset, the approved 16-page platform signals a resumption of Trump's populist focus on supporting the "forgotten men and women of America" and shunning the "siren song of globalism." Extra to emphasizing the importance of reestablishing American borders, on-shoring manufacturing, securing elections, and clamping down on crime, Trump's party is apparently also gearing up to industrialize space and rebuild the country's dilapidated cities.

"For decades, our politicians sold our jobs and livelihoods to the highest bidders overseas," says the document's preamble. "They insulated themselves from criticism and the consequences of their own bad actions, allowing our Borders to be overrun, our cities to be overtaken by crime, our System of Justice to be weaponized, and our young people to develop a sense of hopelessness and despair."

"They rejected our History and our Values. Quite simply, they did everything in their power to destroy our Country," added the preamble.

Noting that Trump's first term marked a positive break in this trend, the platform indicates that a Republican trifecta in Washington, D.C., would continue his earlier project of making America great again. Doing so will apparently involve making good on the following 20 promises, originally in all caps:

• "Seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion";
• "Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history";
• "End inflation, and make America affordable again";
• "Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower";
• "Large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!";
• "Defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms";
• "Prevent World War Three, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great Iron Dome missile defense shield over our entire country — all made in America";
• "End the weaponization of government against the American people";
• "Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders";
• "Rebuild our cities, including Washington[,] DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again";
• "Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world";
• "Keep the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency";
• "Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age";
• "Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations";
• "Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children";
• "Keep men out of women's sports";
• "Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again";
• "Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship"; and
• "Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success."

The remainder of the platform elaborates on some of these promises while also committing the GOP to take other stands — against the creation of a central bank digital currency; against "Democrats' unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown"; against taxpayer-funded sex change mutilations; for the development of artificial intelligence rooted in free speech; and for the restoration of beauty in public architecture and through conservation efforts.

The platform also indicates that Republicans will support the establishment of a federal task force aimed at fighting anti-Christian bias "that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America."

Whereas previous Republican platforms emphasized pro-life concerns regarding the slaughter of the unborn, Trump's platform reads like Republican realpolitik regarding abortion.

While indicating that the 14th Amendment "guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process," the platform intimates that its application to the unborn is a matter for individual states to decide. The Republican Party moving forward will apparently only commit to opposing late-term abortion while simultaneously supporting access to "birth control" and fertility treatments.

The Washington Post highlighted that the document also omits language from previous platforms condemning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to grant homosexuals the right to "marry."

Instead, it states, "Republicans will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, the blessings of childhood, and the foundational role of families, and supports working parents. We will end policies that punish families."

Trump noted on Truth Social, "Ours is a forward-looking Agenda with strong promises that we will accomplish very quickly when we win the White House and Republican Majorities in the House and Senate. We are, quite simply, the Party of Common Sense!"

Senior Trump campaign advisors Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a joint statement, "While Joe Biden and Democrats argue about who will be at the top of their ticket and have implemented policies that have raised prices on everyday families, opened the floodgates to migrant crime via wide-open borders, shackled American energy with red tape forced by Washington bureaucrats, and sewn [sic] chaos across the world through weak foreign policy, President Trump will Make America Great Again through these America First principles."

The 2024 platform has been met with mixed responses.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the chair of the platform committee, suggested it's the "best platform we've ever put forward."

"I think we have a unified party behind President Trump who's our nominee and our platform reflects his views," Kevin Cabrera, an RNC platform committee member from Florida, told WISN-TV. "It's a stark contrast to the other side."

Some in the tech space celebrated the platform's resistance to regulation and forward-thinking on space and AI.

Jacob Helberg, commissioner for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, suggested it "sets a new standard for what a pro-tech agenda looks like."

Gayle Ruzicka, a RNC platform committee member from Utah, told WISN there was no virtually no debate about the platform.

"There was no committees. We've always had subcommittees where we can go in and work on a section of the platform. We can propose amendments, debate them, add them. Always happens — I've done it many times," said Ruzicka. "They didn't allow any amendments. They didn't allow any discussion. They rolled us."

"I'm extremely disappointed that we do not have any pro-life language," added Ruzicka. "There are good things in this platform. There are a lot of things in there that I support. ... But I didn't vote for this because we've never had a platform — I've been coming to these conventions since 1992 and this is the first time we don't have a pro-life platform."

While some pro-life advocates, such as Paul Brown, director of policy for Abolish Abortion Texas, similarly bemoaned the party's softened stance against abortion, others — including Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, and Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, have voiced support for the "common-sense promises" in the platform.

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