President Trump delivered a fiercely partisan speech Thursday night as he accepted the Republican nomination for re-election, using one of America’s most cherished icons as a Hollywood-style prop.
The White House, home to presidents for 220 years, served as Trump’s backdrop for a long, yet entirely familiar speech.
Climaxing the Republican National Convention, it allowed Trump to celebrate his supposed accomplishments as president and claim that, if re-elected, he will “save the American Dream.”
Satisfying Trump’s craving for a live audience, perhaps 1,500 people were jammed together on the mansion’s South Lawn, a scant few wearing masks, providing ready applause during each pause in his 71-minute speech.
Although earlier, brief, prerecorded speakers were of varying races, backgrounds and ethnicities, the Thursday night crowd was overwhelmingly white.
After noting that he stood before the “People’s House,” Trump quickly launched attacks on Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years,” the president said. “Biden’s record is a shameful roll call of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime.”
He offered no specific examples of such betrayals or blunders, but that didn’t appear to matter to him or his audience.
The Washington Post branded Trump’s speech “a tidal wave of false claims and revisionist history.”
The boldest — and least credible — of Trump’s claims on Thursday night was that a vaccine for the Covid-19 coronavirus is, thanks to him, at hand.
“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year, and we will crush the virus,” he promised.
For all that, the evening was a skillful, made-for-TV extravaganza.
“Trump’s campaign spared no expense in creating that backdrop — building an extensive, red-white-and-blue stage where Marine One usually takes off, installing 1,500 folding chairs, and a lectern with the seal of the President of the United States,” reported the New York Times.
“Mr. Trump milked it for all it was worth,” the Times said.
Like speakers throughout the convention, Trump characterized the Nov. 3 vote as “the most important election in the history of our country” — neglecting Lincoln’s on the eve of the Civil War, Franklin Roosevelt’s during the Great Depression and the Second World War, and even Washington’s, the first of them all, in 1788-89.
Unlike any president before him, said the Post, “The stagecraft of Trump’s various appearances at this week’s convention … was designed to leverage the powers of incumbency and showcase him as president.
“Trump has obliterated the line between governing and campaigning and tested legal boundaries this week, breaking the long-held norm of presidents not using the White House for overt political activities,” the Post added.
The evening ended with a thunderous fireworks show, worthy of the 4th of July, radiant against the silhouette of the Washington monument.
Spelled out in the sky, were: “TRUMP” and “2020.”
