Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party‘s nomination Thursday night in the conclusion of the Republican National Convention from Cleveland. And in the longest speech since Bill Clinton‘s 1996 acceptance speech that lasted just over an hour, Donald Trump spoke to the GOP contingent for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
It was also during that hour and fifteen minutes that the now GOP Presidential nominee painted a very bleak and dark picture of America, the same tone that effectively won him the Republican primary. Donald Trump once again appealed to the fears of the American people instead of their hopes speaking of illegal immigrants that could kill you in the streets, ‘radical islamic’ terrorists and an out of control crime rate that doesn’t seem to fall in line with the actual statistics.
Trump: “The crime and violence that afflict our nation will soon come to an end.” Some perspective: pic.twitter.com/E5MBJTreNr
— The Marshall Project (@MarshallProj) July 22, 2016
Trump also took on a Nationalistic tone speaking of ‘Americanism and not Globalism’, ripping up trade deals, drawing back on NATO seemingly referring to it as a business deal instead of a 70-plus year old treaty.
Donald Trump: "Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo" https://t.co/KjpeNheq0X #RNCinCLE https://t.co/JSlBj3Nlhi
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 22, 2016
The Republican candidate also didn’t hold back on making a lot of promises with not a lot of specifics when it came to abolishing Obamacare, putting people back to work, making the military stronger, lowering taxes and so on and so forth.
.#RNCinCLE #DonaldTrump blasting open borders, crowd chants "build that wall." #Mexico #immigration #trump #rnc
— Rita Cosby (@RitaCosby) July 22, 2016
Trump: "Democrats will join our movement because we are going to fix the system so it works fairly and justly for each and every American"
— Andrew Peng (@TheAPJournalist) July 22, 2016
Will Trump defend LGBTQ citizens if they're attacked by immigrants instead of radical Islamic terrorists? It's like rock paper scissors.
— Ivor Tossell (@ivortossell) July 22, 2016
Donald Trump: "We are going to build a great border wall" https://t.co/KjpeNheq0X #RNCinCLE https://t.co/DXWp6Ugui9
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 22, 2016
Instead of Ronald Regan, Donald Trump’s speech was being compared to that of Ricard Nixon and the ‘silent majority’ and in some cases drawing comparisons to the incredibly divisive George Wallace.