While the liberal media highlights and exaggerates the divisions within the Republican Party, the 2016 platform points toward a unified front against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Some of Donald Trump’s comments had worried conservatives, suggesting that he would insist on platform changes that would, among other things, weaken the pro-life plank and move to the left on other social issues. Such changes would have repelled many conservatives, throwing away votes that Trump must have. A 2008 poll by the McCain campaign found that dropping the pro-life plank would have lost McCain far more votes than it added.

However, the Trump campaign allowed the Platform Committee to draft a document that takes a solidly conservative position on social issues. The pro-life plan remains unequivocal. There is a pledge to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage by a constitutional amendment. State laws preserving privacy in bathrooms are praised. Republican-appointed judges are to be supporters of traditional family values. The Republican policy is summed up by the declaration that “man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights.”

This is in sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton’s proclamation against Christianity, stating that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

On other issues, the platform lines up well with Trump’s professed views. The wall will be built. The Second Amendment is to be protected. ObamaCare must go. Support for the Trans Pacific Partnership has been dropped.

The platform offers a foundation for conservative-populist unity within the Republican Party. There is no other path to victory. Division mean President Hillary Clinton.