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In a United States ravaged by a pandemic, divided by race or politics and mired in an economic crisis, President Donald Trump presented himself as a savior.
“This election will decide whether we save the ‘American dream’ or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our dear destiny,” Trump said as he accepted the Republican nomination for a second presidential term on Thursday night.
“In a new term as president, we will rebuild the largest economy in history, rapidly returning to full employment, increasing incomes and registering prosperity, “Trump said from the White House.
He also launched a harsh attack on the Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, whom he presented as someone who has damaged the country “in the last 47 years” and is surrounded by radicals.
“Joe Biden is not the savior of America’s soul, he is the destroyer of America’s jobs, and given the opportunity, he will be the destroyer of American greatness,” he warned.
His speech evidenced an act of political juggling that Trump is trying to be reelected: to be president and opponent at once.
Trump seeks to disclaim responsibility for the simultaneous crises that the US is going through under his own government, showing himself as a solution to the country’s current problems.
And, in the same exercise, he singles out his Democratic rivals as the real establishment that would lead the country to the cliff.
Vaccine promise
Trump’s words were the high and final point of the Republican Convention that began Monday.
The US surpassed 180,000 deaths from coronavirus this week and is approaching 6 million infected, figures that exceed those of any other country, but many Republican speakers avoided analyzing in depth the severity of the pandemic.
Some even referred to the coronavirus in the past tense, despite the steady advance of COVID-19 and the millions of jobs still lost: “It was horrible,” said Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser.
Trump addressed an audience of about 1,000 people on the South Lawn of the White House, most of them without masks. Image Copyright: GETTY IMAGES
Trump – who from the beginning of the pandemic tried to minimize its severity and suggested responses lacking scientific support – spoke on the outside lawn of the White House without a face mask, in front of hundreds of followers who they did not keep social distancing.
He referred to covid-19 on different occasions as “the virus of China” and, after lamenting the loss of life without managing figures, offered an optimistic outlook with the promise of a vaccine in a few months.
“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year and together we will crush the virus,” he promised despite the lack of scientific certainty in this regard.
He also said that, thanks to financial aid offered by the government, the US had “the smallest economic contraction of any large Western nation” and is “recovering much faster.”
However, much of that government aid came to a halt at the end of July and economists fear that the recovery of the labor market stagnate.
Just last week, one million Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time.
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Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist against Trump, maintains that during the party convention issues such as covid-19 or the economic crisis.
“They try to portray the country in a strange dichotomy: on the one hand, they say that the country is more prosperous than ever and that Donald Trump is the best president of all time,” Wilson tells BBC Mundo.
“On the other hand, they are describing the country as completely beset by crime, riots and anarchism,” he adds.
“No one will be safe”
Trump’s speech was also set against the backdrop of protests that erupted in the city of Kenosha (Wisconsin) after police shot at Jacob blake, an unarmed African-American.
Amid outbreaks of violence in some of those protests, two people were killed by gunfire this week.
A white teenager who had voiced support for police causes was arrested and charged with intentional homicide for those shots on Wednesday.
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Democratic opponents argue that Trump fueled America’s racial tension by promoting a heavy hand in the face of the wave of protests against racial injustice and police brutality that have raged across the country since the death of George Floyd, an African-American in custody. police in May.
But Trump ran as the candidate of the “law”, declared his support for the police and claimed that violence occurs in cities controlled by Democrats.
Trump ran on Thursday as the “law and order” candidate. Image Copyright: GETTY IMAGES
“Make no mistake, if you give Joe Biden power, the radical left will cut funding for police departments across the US,” the president said despite the fact that the Democratic candidate has never raised that.
“No one will be safe in Biden’s America,” Trump warned, reiterating what Vice President Mike Pence had said a day earlier at the Republican Convention.
In response to this, the Democratic candidate defended that violence is observed during the current administration and asked: “Did Mike Pence forget that Donald Trump is president? Does Donald Trump even know that he is president?”
Like in 2016?
Another sign of Trump’s duality has been his denunciations that his adversaries may “steal” the November elections.
On Monday he reiterated the unsubstantiated claim that postal ballots can lead to electoral fraud, despite the fact that he himself is responsible for the government.
At the same time, the use of the White House on the part of Trump to accept his partisan presidential candidacy raised questions, since it is something unusual in this country.
The president alluded to those questions in a challenging tone on Thursday: “We are here and they are not,” he said.
The location chosen by Trump to deliver his speech, at the White House, caused controversy. Image Copyright: REUTERS
The event included music and songs of “four more years” by those present and, at the end, fireworks over the national monuments of Washington.
It is also unusual for Republicans to run for this election without a new party platform (something that had not happened since 1856) and instead renew the 2016 one.
This, or the fact that the Trump family has starred in the Republican Convention, seem signs that this election, more than about government programs, will be for or against the president.
During his speech, Trump made several promises that are more common in politicians in search of the government than in those who exercise it.
“On November 3, we will make the US more secure, we will make the US stronger, we will make the US more proud and we will make the US greater than ever,” he proclaimed. .
He also said that it is necessary to “turn the page forever on this failed political class.”
- What Donald Trump Really Believes
Four years earlier, Trump also presented himself as a stranger of politics: a tycoon of real estate and star of reality show that challenged the establishment with promises to “drain the swamp” in Washington and use his negotiating cunning to improve the economy.
Now, with several close ex-advisers on trial for various crimes and amid the biggest U.S. health and economic collapse in decades, Trump may have a harder time recreating that one. renew the aura.
But that seems to be his bet to win his reelection in November, while Biden leads him several points in the polls.
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