Donald Trump stoked the fears of an angry Republican convention on Thursday as he declared himself the law and order candidate in an acceptance speech that took a sharply authoritarian turn.
Promising supporters that “safety will be restored” once he becomes president, Trump sought to harness concern over terrorism and domestic crime to challenge Hillary Clinton on territory that has long proven a reliable rallying cry for parties of the right.
“In this race for the White House, I am the law and order candidate,” he claimed, encouraging and directing loud chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” like the conductor of an orchestra.
“Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country,” he added.
The four-day convention in Cleveland has seen repeated cries of “lock her up” when Clinton’s name is mentioned, but Trump waved these chants aside as if granting mercy with his hands and urged instead: “Let’s defeat her in November.”
The 75-minute speech pushed familiar buttons. “Illegal immigrants are roaming free to threaten innocent citizens,” Trump told the booing crowd, which responded by chanting “build the wall”.
Another theme of the week in Cleveland has been loud cheers whenever speakers replace the “black lives matter” slogan with “blue lives matter” to signify sympathy for police over African American shooting victims and Trump received a standing ovation when he declared: “An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans”.
The interruption of a protester 23 minutes in prompted Trump to ad-lib: “How great are our police?” as the cries of a woman being removed could still be heard dimly in the distance.
But as the giant Quicken Loans Arena eventually filled with thousands of red, white and blue balloons to signify the end of what has been something of an awkward convention, the party’s once unthinkable nominee sought to strike a message of unity too.
Drawing a contrast with Clinton’s campaign slogan “I’m with her,” he declared: “I am with you.”
“I am your voice,” he pledged, stressing each word carefully as if claiming the popular will as his own.
Introducing Trump, his daughter Ivanka also sought to reach out to female voters – a group who rate the Republican nominee particularly poorly in opinion polls. In a polished and warmly received speech, she rejected repeated suggestions of Trump’s sexism, insisting: “My father is colour blind and gender neutral.”
“He will focus on making quality childcare accessible and affordable to all,” she added, arguing that motherhood, not sexism, was “the greatest factor in gender pay discrepancy”.
Trump said his business experience had given him the skills to fix a rigged country. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he shrugged with smirk. “Which is why I alone can fix it.”
And he painted a bleak view of the US economy, promising “Americanism not globalism” and seeking to convert Democratic-leaning Bernie Sanders supporters with his opposition to free trade deals.
“I have seen first hand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance,” said Trump. “But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and strip the wealth of country.”
The Republican nominee echoed Clinton’s former Democratic challenger by promising to create millions of new jobs by building “the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the railways of tomorrow”.
He also pointed out that Sanders had questioned Clinton’s foreign policy judgment and expressed sympathy with him over Democratic electoral rules said to favour its establishment, much as Trump struggled against the party leadership in the Republican primary.
But tactical appeals to Democrats were limited compared with the unabashed message of security. “There can be no prosperity without law and order,” intoned Trump.
He stuck to his controversial campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border but slightly adapted his equally inflammatory proposed ban on Muslims entering the US.
“We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place,” he said.
“We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities,” added Trump.
In his warnings of “crime and violence” and his solemn pledge that “I am the law and order candidate”, Trump sounded notes eerily similar to Richard Nixon’s campaign rhetoric in 1968.
Then, in the aftermath of consecutive summers of widespread riots across the US, Nixon ran as the candidate of “law and order”.
Ed Cox, the chair of the New York state Republican party and Nixon’s son-in-law, noted some similarities. “Certainly Donald Trump calls his supporters the silent majority unapologetically,” said Cox. “Now that was not a part of [Nixon’s] acceptance speech in ’68, that was November ’69, the Vietnam speech.
“But Donald Trump has captured that silent majority completely for the first time since Reagan, and maybe even better than Reagan. But certainly like my father-in-law.”
Amid a backdrop of terrorist attacks and police shootings, the celebrity billionaire seized on the theme of law and order as a potential rallying cry for a party bruised by internal feuds and a chaotic convention.
The torrent of violent news flooding into American TV screens in recent months was used to boost his own campaign at the expense of Democrats.
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims,” he said.
“America is far less safe – and the world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy,” added Trump.
He took to the stage behind a specially installed gold and black lectern, with the Shakespearean opening line: “Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.”
The text of the speech had been leaked three hours earlier, capping a week in which his wife’s opening address plagiarised Michelle Obama and a call for unity was torpedoed by Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorsee the nominee.
He was also forced to try to explain controversial comments on the future of Nato delivered in a New York Times interview, stressing his loyalty to traditional US allies.
“We must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying Isis and stamping out Islamic terror,” Trump said. “This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the state of Israel.”
He concluded by claiming his political philosophy was unified by the theme of putting Americans first.
“To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise: we will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again and we will make America great again,” said Trump, shortly before the room was filled with the sound of popping balloons that sounded eerily like gunshots.
As Trump’s family joined him on the stage, the crowd looked expectantly to the rafters as the first bars of Free’s All Right Now started playing in the arena and the first few scraps of confetti started floating down.
Section by section, red, white and blue balloons floated down from the sky. The RNC had inflated 120,000 of them, many standard size, some much larger. Some delegates on the floor were buried waist deep as they thrashed about the kaleidoscopic scene.
They hugged, danced and embraced. Some had even smuggled alcohol on to the floor. Al Baldasaro, a New Hampshire state representative who supported Trump since he launched the campaign and has had a penchant for controversy, was euphoric. “It feels awesome,” said Baldasaro.
“We worked our butts off. Donald Trump is the real deal. The people spoke and we’re there. Now on to Hillary and we’re taking the hill.”
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