What to watch for at the Republican National Convention

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Last August, 17 Republican presidential candidates gathered at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for their first debate. The evening was dominated by a real estate/casino/reality TV tycoon who was regarded as little more than a colourful distraction from the real proceedings. He said that the Obamacare health plan was a "complete disaster," that the American campaign-finance system "is broken," and that the problem with the United States was that "we don't win anymore."

It is almost a year later, and Donald J. Trump is about to return to that same arena to claim the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Stranger things have happened in American politics, but not many, and not recently.

Full coverage: Read Affan Chowdhry's recap of Monday's developments at the GOP convention

Mr. Trump, who that August evening boasted he had a net worth of more than $10-billion, is at the centre of American politics now, not on the periphery, and his election to the White House is now regarded as plausible rather than preposterous. The latest polls put him within striking distance of, or in at least one survey ahead of, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Four set-piece events are scheduled for Mr. Trump between now and the November election. Three of them are presidential debates. The fourth is the Republican National Convention, which opens Monday and offers Mr. Trump and his creed perhaps their greatest single moment of exposure to the American people. Here a viewers guide to what to look for in that four-day event.

Who's there and who's not?

Ordinarily national political conventions showcase the party's new stars and old warhorses, and celebrate the party's great achievements and its marquee figures.

Not this time. Many of the new stars are staying away; they are devout conservatives and they doubt Mr. Trump's right-wing bona fides. Many, in fact, hope that he is defeated. Some of the party warhorses have been personally insulted by Mr. Trump and thus will be absent due to scheduling conflicts that might have been avoided had a more conventional candidate emerged as the party's standard-bearer. Instead, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel has a speaking part. It is, after all, an unconventional convention.

And celebrations of the party's past? Four years ago former President Bill Clinton was the star of the Democratic convention; his performance was extraordinary, but his appearance there was not. Former President Harry Truman spoke at the Democrats' convention in Chicago that nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson. ("We are going to win in 1952 the same way we won in 1948. And I pledge you now that I am going to take my coat off and do everything I can to help [Mr. Stevenson] win.") President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke at the 1960 GOP convention that nominated Richard M. Nixon. (He urged the country to elect Mr. Nixon to provide "sound, courageous and enlightened government in the United States.")

The last two Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and George W. Bush (2001-2009), pointedly won't be at the Cleveland convention. Mr. Trump has insulted both of them, and belittled former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida as well. There will be fewer stars in the GOP convention hall in Cleveland than there are on a cloudy night above the shores of Lake Erie.

Read more: What the GOP speakers list says about Trump's image

Are signs of rebellion present at the convention?

Mr. Trump himself is an insurgent candidate, a rebel as much against the traditions of the Republican Party as against the broader political establishment. So his very appearance for his acceptance speech Thursday evening is an act of rebellion itself.

But the question is whether there will be signs of rebellion against the rebel.

One hint will come with the comportment of House Speaker Paul Ryan, an orthodox conservative who nonetheless is the new symbol of the party establishment. The Wisconsin Republican is to preside over the convention sessions – but before he does so he will meet with a group of reporters on Monday. His remarks will be examined with the kind of scrutiny once applied to official releases by the Kremlin.

John Ibbitson: When it comes to political conventions, history shows a divided party rarely wins

Which Trump shows up?

Will it be the feisty Mr. Trump, who first displayed his raucous campaign style last August? Or the Mr. Trump who delivered a more serious foreign-policy speech from a script in late-April?

Mr. Trump' s selection of Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, a conservative whose presence on the GOP ticket reassures some skeptical Republicans, as his running mate is an important, perhaps telling, bow to old-style U.S. politics, which calls for balancing a presidential nominee with a vice-presidential candidate with different attributes and appeal. Then again, Mr. Trump has prevailed thus far by ''being myself,'' which is to say by following no script but instead heeding the inner rhythms of his mind and temperament.

A political convention, however, is no place for a rambling stream-of-consciousness address like the one he delivered in Cincinnati a fortnight ago. Customarily, acceptance speeches are drafted by professional writers, texts are distributed beforehand, and the remarks are published in the official proceedings of the party. This is not Mr. Trump's style – but it may be his obligation.

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Does what happens offstage upstage what happens on stage?

This is the great imponderable. No Democrat expected, or wanted, rioting in the streets of Chicago at the convention that nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968. And yet that is the most memorable element of that doomed convention.

Months ago Mr. Trump raised the spectre of violence at the Cleveland convention if he were denied the nomination, but he glided to his delegate majority and the veiled threats disappeared. And yet the spikes of violence in the U.S. – in Orlando, Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, Dallas and elsewhere – bespeak an unsettling restiveness among Americans, particularly those moved by politics. It is that anxiety that produced the alteration of the Canadian national anthem at the baseball All-Star Game last Tuesday.

This is a moment for Mr. Trump to play a role to which he has not grown accustomed – to be a uniting and calming figure. Convention speeches oftentimes lean on Shakespeare (Democrats 1964) or Tennyson (Democrats 1980). Perhaps someone will whisper in Mr. Trump's ear that this is a moment for Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too