Republicans Put Trump in Soft Focus, Editing Out Years of Rancor

Over three nights, the Republican Party has set out to redefine Donald J. Trump, one of the best-known and most polarizing figures on the political stage, methodically portraying him as a kindly and compassionate paterfamilias capable of uniting Americans during a tumultuous time.

It is a brazen effort after nearly a decade in which Mr. Trump’s style — abrasive and norm-breaking — has helped to redefine American politics and made him such a dominant and divisive figure. The goal seems clear: to make Mr. Trump less threatening and more palatable to moderates and women, groups that have been put off by Mr. Trump’s demeanor and actions, but are critical to his hopes of defeating President Biden in November.

The effort came in the videos shown on the convention hall screens — Mr. Trump dancing to the song “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People in one, embracing a soldier in another — and in repeated descriptions of Mr. Trump as transformed by the assassination attempt he survived on Saturday. A procession of people, including his eldest granddaughter and the man he has chosen to be his vice president, rose to present him as a different man than the one America thought it had known over the past 10 years.

“Even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind,” said Senator J.D. Vance, Mr. Trump’s vice-presidential nominee. “His instinct was for us, for our country. To call us to something higher.”

“They said he was a tyrant,” Mr. Vance said. “They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm, literally right after an assassin nearly took his life.”

The gap between the reality of Mr. Trump and the portrait painted at his nominating convention may prove to be too vast for any Republican makeover. Mr. Trump has spent much of his campaign promising retribution against his enemies should he be returned to the White House and has cast the election as the “final battle.”