The Republican Party began its presidential nominating convention on Monday praising President Donald Trump as a hero and the political saviour of a nation they see under threat from a dangerously radical Democratic Party.
A parade of Republican speakers angrily cast the upcoming election as an extreme choice between Trump, defender of the American way of life, and a “rotten cabal” of left-wing activists who would destroy the United States.
“It’s almost as if this election is shaping up to be church, work and school versus rioting, looting and vandalism, or in the words of Biden and the Democrats, ‘peaceful protesting’,” Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, said.
“If you’re looking for hope, look to the man who did what the failed Obama-Biden Administration never could do, and built the greatest economy our country had ever seen,” Trump Jr said.
“And President Trump will do it again,” he said, one of the very few references on the night to the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating economic effect.
The convention began during the daytime in Charlotte, North Carolina, and continued in the evening from Washington, DC, with a mixture of speeches and taped segments in a hybrid convention limited by safety concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
Coronavirus precautions meant there was no audience in Washington’s Mellon Auditorium where convention speakers delivered their remarks.
Nikki Haley, the Trump administration’s former ambassador to the UN said Trump has pursued an “America first” agenda in international affairs.
“Obama and Biden let North Korea threaten America. President Trump rejected that weakness, and we passed the toughest sanctions on North Korea in history,” Haley said.
“Obama and Biden let Iran get away with murder and literally sent them a plane full of cash. President Trump did the right thing and ripped up the Iran nuclear deal,” Haley said.
“Obama and Biden led the United Nations to denounce our friend and ally, Israel. President Trump moved our embassy to Jerusalem – and when the UN tried to condemn us, I was proud to cast the American veto,” she said.
Speakers in the Republican programme warned repeatedly about an alleged socialist agenda behind the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris.