I'm Michelle Goldberg.

I'm Frank Bruney, and this is the argument.

It's the Republicans' week to make their pitch to the American people.

Who is the Republican National Convention for this year?

And is Trumpism the party's future?

And finally, a recommendation.

With Ross on vacation, we've recruited an excellent conservative voice to help us make sense of this week's convention.

Charlie Sykes, editor at large of the online political news network, The Bowlwork,

is joining us for what will certainly be a spirited discussion.

Charlie, thanks so much for coming on the argument.

Well, thanks for having me.

So we're recording this on Tuesday after just the first night of the convention.

And that was something.

I assume you watched it, Charlie, and I'm curious what your thoughts are in the aftermath of what

the party and Trump are trying to accomplish this week and what their message is and who they're

sending it to.

It's interesting, the number of people who evaluate these based on the production values

as if it's a big show.

In the end, I just want to remind everybody, it all comes back to Donald Trump.

Whatever we're seeing here, it's all going to come back to Donald Trump.

And this is a convention that started off by essentially declaring that it had no ideology,

no ideas, no platform, literally, that it was all Trumpism.

...