An emotional first day of the Republican National Convention ended Monday night with an official ticket for 2024, Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance, but it was Mr. Trump’s triumphal prime-time emergence in the arena, just two days after a failed assassination attempt, that might prove the indelible moment of the whole event.
The opening session signaled how unified and confident the G.O.P. was behind its preternaturally resilient nominee, and set the tone for a four-day conclave that will project Republican strength and conviction that a red wave is in the making.
At 9 p.m., as the country star Lee Greenwood sang the anthem that Mr. Trump has made his own, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the former president stepped into view at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, a gauze bandage over the ear wounded by his would-be assassin, his eyes seemingly close to tears. It was his first public appearance since the shooting, and the applause was rapturous from the delegates, elected officials and Republican elites, many of whom have doubted his leadership in the past.
“You will not take this man down,” Mr. Greenwood said, attributing the former president’s survival to divine intervention. “He has the courage, the strength and he will be the next president of the United States.”
Here are four takeaways from the convention’s first day:
It’s Trump’s party.
There was a time when Mr. Trump did not like to share the spotlight. On Monday, with a fresh bandage on his right ear, he showed no insecurities atop a political party he has molded into his own, despite 34 felony convictions, two impeachments, civil judgments for business fraud, sexual abuse and defamation, and pending indictments tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
As Mr. Greenwood sang, Mr. Trump shook hands with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality; Representative Byron Donalds of Florida; his sons Don Jr. and Eric; and his running mate, Mr. Vance. For the final hour of the session, as others took to the podium, the camera repeatedly swung back to the nominee, who sat beaming. He never stepped to a microphone.
After the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, a bipartisan majority of the House voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting an insurrection. Most Republican senators declined to convict him, a verdict that would have ended his political career. They did not think it would be wise or necessary.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s political comeback reached the necessary milestone of renomination and party unification. He feels tantalizingly close to the final step: returning to the White House.
J.D. Vance was chosen for legacy, not electoral gain.
Eight years ago, Mr. Vance said he feared Mr. Trump could become “America’s Hitler.” On Monday, Mr. Trump anointed Mr. Vance, a 39-year-old freshman senator from Ohio, the heir apparent of his “America First” movement, trusting that his party control was absolute and his election was secure.
As a vice-presidential nominee from a reliably Republican state, Mr. Vance may not be much help securing any of the battleground states needed to deliver Mr. Trump a second term.
But as the first millennial running mate, Mr. Vance has a long political future ahead of him. And no one can articulate Mr. Trump’s vision of “America First” better than the smooth-talking senator, who viscerally understands a platform ostensibly designed to lift working-class Americans by crushing competition from immigrants, stopping imports through trade protectionism, and ending American entanglements abroad.
Mr. Vance, of course, is not the first Republican who was once harshly critical of Mr. Trump and is now obsequiously respectful. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were at least as brutal. But Mr. Trump passed over those three competitors in 2016 to choose as his running mate Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana, who was always content to stand in Mr. Trump’s shadow.
This time, Mr. Trump looked beyond the personal and political as he sought to ensure his brand of isolationist nationalism survives long after his departure.
Republicans try to chisel away at the Democratic coalition.
Black men dominated the early sessions, a Latina took the stage just after Mr. Trump’s emotional entry, a union leader gave the final speech, and a California lawyer closed the night with a Sikh prayer.
They all hailed from voting blocs core to the Democratic coalition.
The flurry of Black male speakers was particularly striking. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas and Representative John James of Michigan came one after another, followed later by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Mr. Donalds. Trump campaign officials are determined to peel off a significant chunk of Black male votes from the Democrats in November, but they’d better hope those voters were tuned in Monday.
The closing speech by Sean O’Brien, the Teamsters president, was even more remarkable. He started it by saying that no Teamsters leader had ever addressed a Republican convention, and he acknowledged that his presence had divided his own union.
A significant percentage of the Teamsters’ 1.3 million members is already with Mr. Trump, but the leadership of organized labor has been a bulwark of support for President Biden. If nothing else, the Republicans’ invitation to Mr. O’Brien undermined the image of a united union front backing the Democrats.
President Biden is on defense.
Since a gunman nearly took Mr. Trump’s life, Mr. Biden has been in a difficult political position. He has tried to project statesmanship, addressing the nation with an appeal to unity and a plea to turn down the political heat. He called Mr. Trump to personally express his support, and temporarily pulled down political advertisements.
On Monday night, as one Republican speaker after another castigated Mr. Biden’s leadership, the president was questioned on NBC News about whether he had contributed to the violence of American politics.
Mr. Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt that it had been “a mistake” to tell donors a week ago that he wanted to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye.”
But he added: “How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”
Republicans have continued to suggest that Mr. Biden’s attacks on Mr. Trump incited the gunman, whose motives in fact are still unknown.
If Mr. Biden was playing defense, Republicans showed no reluctance to lace into the president.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia declared, “The Democrat economy is of, by, and for illegal aliens.” Charlie Kirk, the youthful founder of the pro-Trump group Turning Point U.S.A., said Mr. Biden had embraced a “fake, pathetic, mutilated version of the American dream.”
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