Terror emanating from foreign lands and ruthless attacks on law enforcement officials at home – the presidency of Donald Trump would squash these two eternal sources of white American insecurity on Day One, the billionaire property mogul promised, in a blistering, darkly portentous nomination speech on Thursday night.
Accepting the mantle of the party for the November presidential race from a rather grudging Republican leadership – most heavy-hitters of the party entirely boycotted the proceedings in Cleveland, Ohio – Mr. Trump’s most remarkable moments of the evening came not from his expected warnings about the legacy of “death, destruction and weakness” of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, but from his subtle shift towards the political middle ground that not many seemed to have noticed.
In terms of timing, it makes perfect sense. Until now, through the inexorable process of whittling down the eclectic, 17-member cast of the circus show that was the Republican primary election, Mr. Trump seemed to be sliding farther to the right with each passing week.
First there was his proposal for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.,” then there were the ad hominem attacks against African-Americans, Mexicans, women, the differently-abled, protestors at his rally, and most notably the media. In many cases his remarks either directly or tacitly condoned acts of physical violence against his chosen target.
On U.S. foreign policy Mr. Trump appeared to be prepared to “bomb the hell out of” enemies such as Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and kick allies like Saudi Arabia and NATO members in the teeth for not paying more cold cash for American munificence.
This week Mr. Trump’s hawkish approach appeared to have run its course after it secured for him not only the nomination by party elites but also the unshakeable faith of millions of Americans who feel disgruntled with eight years of Democratic control of the White House and with a Republican Party leadership that has been unproductively obstructionist on Capitol Hill.
So it should come as no surprise that Mr. Trump laced his familiar references to “violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities” and his promise to “build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration,” with a new, more conciliatory rhetoric.First, Mr. Trump spoke of African-Americans and Latinos living in greater poverty and unemployment today than they did when U.S. President Barack Obama first entered office. It was however not without a twist, for Mr. Trump linked it causally to “Decades of record immigration [producing] lower wages and higher unemployment for... African-American and Latino workers.”
Similarly he tipped his hat to the LGBT community, however citing the Orlando terror attack to subtly draw lines between this community and the threat of “Islamic terrorism.” It is another matter that Mr. Trump earlier said that he found last year’s epochal ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on marriage equality to be “shocking.”
The most dramatic policy shift was the watering down his infamous ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Apparently Mr. Trump now believes that rather than a blanket ban on Muslims, what is required is to “immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.”
Finally, Mr. Trump spoke of the time when he “visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals.” Thus does one among New York’s wealthiest elite, an owner of golf resorts, casinos and hotels, champion the cause of the common man.
Americans would be wise to expect Mr. Trump embark on an accelerating rhetorical slide towards the median voter, who he has currently lost through the season of strident bigotry that passed for Republican presidential debates.
If Ms. Clinton wishes to expose this manipulation and push back against Mr. Trump’s expected efforts to tar her much longer record in office she will need to unify the Divided States of America around its founding principle of e pluribus unum , or “out of many, one.”
