Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for re-election in front of the White House on Thursday night.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump said after he “profoundly” accepted his party’s nomination.
Trump went on to excoriate the Democratic party and argue that the choice for voters is between a president who has a record of unmatched accomplishments and an opposition party and candidate eager to tear down the country.
“At the Democrat national convention, Joe Biden and his party repeatedly assailed America as a land of racial, economic, and social injustice,” Trump said. “So tonight, I ask you a very simple question: How can the Democrat party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?”
Trump’s remarks were the capstone of a night where speakers focused on national security and safety, describing the country as rife with chaos and lawlessness in the streets. Speakers also repeatedly stressed that Trump was a longstanding friend of the African American community and minorities.
Few mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 180,000 Americans dead. Trump himself delivered his speech in front of an audience of around 1,500 officials and supporters at the White House, sitting packed together, few wearing masks.
“I did what our political establishment never expected and could never forgive, breaking the cardinal rule of Washington politics,” Trump said. “I kept my promises.”
Trump has kept around half of his 2016 campaign pledges, according to Politifact. Trump’s address was the main event of the party’s national convention.
Over the past four days, speakers at the convention have included White House aides to Trump, his family members, and a few statewide elected politicians. Broadly they have argued that Biden is a leftist radical that would bring ruination to the country and Trump is the only person who can stop it.
Trump delivered his speech amid heightened tensions across the country over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man who was repeatedly shot in front of his children and left paralyzed by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday. The shooting has sparked a wave of anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests across the country.
Trump and his campaign have charged again and again that Biden is a “socialist” and liberal extremist who wants to defund police across the country and supports a Medicare for All healthcare plan championed by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Both are untrue.
In his speech, Trump portrayed himself as a president focused on law and order. During the protests across the country, Trump has expressed support for law enforcement using tougher tactics. He has dispatched federal law enforcement and military officials to cities experiencing protests, which has served to inflame tensions.
Biden himself has pointed out that the dire picture Trump has described is actually what’s going on now, during his time in office.
“The violence you’ve seen is in Donald Trump’s administration. Donald Trump’s America,” Biden said during a fundraiser Thursday afternoon.
Trump, Mike Pence, and other speakers have also argued that under Trump the economy has only improved, foreign terrorists have been defeated, and the coronavirus pandemic is an afterthought. But the US defense department says Isis has not been entirely defeated; tens of millions remain unemployed; and more than 180,000 people have died from Covid-19, far more than in any other country.
Trump has made some kind of appearance every night of the convention, at times blurring the lines between campaigning and governing, and raising ethics concerns. But Trump aides, including his chief of staff, have denied allegations that the president and his team violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from conducting political activity while on duty.
Besides Trump, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani delivered speeches.
Giuliani, the former New York mayor, used his speech to paint a portrait of an America on the verge of anarchy, and accused New York current mayor Bill De Blasio of allowing protests and crime to spiral.
“Today, my city is in shock. Murders, shootings, and violent crime are increasing in percentages never heard of in the past,” Giuliani claimed. In reality, serious crime is down under de Blasio, the annual number of murders is around half the number it was under Giuliani.
“These continuous riots in Democratic cities gives a good view” of a Biden administration, Giuliani claimed. He ended by saying “Mr President, make our nation safe again!”
In a taped speech, senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, described Trump as his friend, and framed himself as a midwestern champion leading the defense of the Senate from Democrats.
“Today’s Democratic party doesn’t want to improve life for middle America,” McConnell said in the video, going on to say “we are the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda”.
Unlike most speakers this week, Trump’s housing secretary Ben Carson directly addressed Blake’s shooting, starting his remarks by saying “our hearts go out to the Blake family” before launching into a full throated defense of Trump on the African American community.
“Before the pandemic African American unemployment was at an all time low,” Carson said, in a somewhat misleading statement. “At this point in time President Trump is the man with the courage, the vision, and the ability to keep it shining brightly.”
The RNC has notably lacked some key party figures and the presence of the last Republican president, George W Bush. Meanwhile, Democrats’ convention included speeches by former Republican elected officials who have emerged as outspoken critics of the president.
On Thursday morning, aides to the previous two Republican nominees for president, the late John McCain and the Utah senator Mitt Romney, released statements endorsing Biden. The Biden campaign hopes that support will motivate moderates and Republicans to support the centrist Democrat.
Earlier on Thursday, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, delivered a scathing rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.
“The Republican convention is designed for one purpose: to soothe Donald Trump’s ego, to make him feel good,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing: he’s the president of the United States, and it’s not supposed to be about him. It’s supposed to be about the health and the safety and the wellbeing of the American people.”
Source: Elections - theguardian.com
