Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump used recent incidents of Islamist terrorism and racial violence to embellish his narrative that America is facing an existential threat and claimed only his victory would bring the country back from the brink. “I alone can fix it," he told the Republican National Convention (RNC).
Blaming his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama for making “America less safe and the world less stable,” Mr. Trump said while Ms Ms. Clinton’s legacy was “death, destruction and weakness,” he would “lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace.”
Mr. Trump’s general election pitch is not going to be radically different from his primary campaign, it turned out on Thursday night. He promised to renegotiate trade deals and defence pacts, bar people from countries affected by terrorism from entering the U.S, tighten immigration policies and reverse trade deficit. “America first. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo,” he declared. He blamed China for manipulative trade practices and named NAFTA and TPP trade deal as bad for the American working people.
'No trade pact that will affect our workers'
“I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence. Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries,” he said.
Mr. Trump blamed Ms. Clinton’s interventions in West Asia for the current chaos in the region. “Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have? ISIS has spread across the region, and the world.”
Charge against Hillary
Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton of “giving 150 billon dollars” to Iran under the nuclear deal – an exaggeration and misrepresentation of the fact that Iran’s frozen bank accounts were released. Administration officials believe the money would in the range of 50 to 60 billion dollars.
In other places, Mr. Trump gilded crime and economic trends with hyperboles and insinuations to make them politically convenient. Mr. Trump promised to protect “LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” citing the Orlando massacre of homosexuals by an Islamist terrorist but overlooked homophobia promoted by Christian conservative groups and his own party members. Mr. Trump said the evangelicals groups would get more support from him when in power.
Prejudices against Muslims
The real estate baron's speech allowed prejudices to fester against Muslims, but sought to draft African-Americans and Latinos into his anti-immigration politics. “Nearly four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African-American youth are not employed. 2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago,” he said, blaming excessive inflow of people for their plight.
“Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers.”
Sanders fans will come to his side?
Playing the role of an insider-turned-rebel that he has conjured up for himself, Mr. Trump said since he knew how the political system was rigged against the common people, he could fix it. Mr. Trump claimed a lot of people who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries would cross over to his camp. Ms. Clinton would be beholden to donors and special interests, Mr. Trump said. “She is their puppet, and they pull the strings.” But he would accountable only to the people. “I will be your voice.”
