When Donald Trump announced his intention to run for president last year, politicos and passers-by didn't give him much hope.
His brash nature, lack of experience and proud ignorance on many key policy areas led many to believe that he'd be shown up over the course of the primary campaign.
Analysts underestimated the strength of America's desire to punish the establishment for perceived failings in issue-areas like immigration, domestic security and the economy.
Trump has played on that anger and fear throughout his primary campaign and that tactic, coupled with scathing schoolyard attacks on competitors like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have seen him emerge victorious: he is now officially the Republican nominee for the Oval Office.
Last night in Cleveland, on the fourth night of this year's Republican National Convention, Trump accepted the nomination in front of thousands of cheering Republicans, delivering a speech that would be described as, at best, a deviation from the standard acceptance speech.
https://youtu.be/wv7vyrOxwrg
Here is how major media outlets across the world reacted to Trump's first speech as the official Republican nominee for President of the United States:
Republican strikes authoritarian tone in convention speech focusing on recent terrorist attacks and police killings to assure Americans ‘safety will be restored’.
Trump needs to convince voters that things are bad, even if they’re not. He needs to make Americans afraid again. And tonight, he tried.
In 2016, Donald J. Trump mounted the stage, and told America that the nation is in crisis. That attacks on police and terrorism threaten the American way of life. That the United States suffers from domestic disaster, and international humiliation. That it is full of shuttered factories and crushed communities. That it is beset by “poverty and violence at home” and “war and destruction abroad.”
The GOP nominee rolled out a series of frightening statistics about the state of the nation. They ranged from accurate to incomplete to outright false.
Repeating a signature policy that opponents call a fantastical lie, and adding new quasi-magical benefits that it would bring, Mr Trump proudly vowed 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.”
Republican primary voters have already spoken by choosing Mr Trump as their presidential nominee. If in November a majority of general election voters hear their voice in Mr Trump’s words, it is not just the American republic will be changed forever. The world should fear this man who sells himself as a new Caesar.
Donald Trump ended his party’s convention Thursday the way he began his history-making campaign: attacking the political establishment, playing to voters’ fears of foreigners and crime, and making bold promises to fix America’s ills.
