JULY 22, 2016
Photo: Getty
Boy, that was one dark speech.
After a sunny introductory address by his daughter Ivanka, Donald J. Trump took to the stage of the Quicken Loans Arena on Thursday night to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for President and proceeded to paint a portrait of America as a place that is being torn apart from within and besieged by enemies from abroad. It was enough to make you want to hide under the bed.
Which, of course, was the point.
After the shootings by police and of police last week, Trump has begun to take a page out of the Richard Nixon playbook to fashion himself as the “law and order candidate.” And what better way to make a crowd see you as their savior than by conjuring up a terror-filled world that can only be corrected by a white knight?
“I alone can fix it,” assured Trump from the stage.
If anyone had any doubt that Trump has a Messiah complex, last night’s 76-minute speech should put that notion to rest. After describing the situation which the United States faces as little more than a hell on earth, Trump comes to the conclusion that the only solution is…himself.
This was not some wild off-the-cuff ramblings for which Trump is famed. This tirade was actually scripted, which Trump dutifully read from a teleprompter, which means that someone else (or more terrifyingly, a lot of speechwriters) felt that the way to sell this candidate was as Sir Galahad, picking up his sword alone to fight the evil Muslim dragon.
As if to underline the fact that only he, Donald J. Trump, was the sole person who could stand up against the threats buffeting the American people, Trump even said at one point, “I am your voice.” Jeez. I wonder what the right-wing radio hosts who think that Barack Obama is arrogant will think of this. (They’ll probably cheer him.)
It didn’t have to be this way. In fact, Trump probably could have done himself a lot more good if his ego allowed him to tell his own story — his early life in Queens, how he worked to reach the position he’s now in and his love for his wife and his kids. (Based on their speeches in Cleveland this week, the kids seemed to have turned out all right.) Unfortunately, nothing Trump said on Thursday did anything to change the image of the bloviating cartoon that he has become, and he has blown probably his last best chance to do so.
Onto Philadelphia and the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia starting on Monday. Like Trump, Hillary Clinton has a public image problem of distrust, and she will have four days herself to try to dispel it. Let’s hope that she does a better job than Trump did this week.
