Fear and Devotion to Donald Trump at the Convention

At the first night of the Republican convention, speakers praise Trump while warning of 'socialist' Democrats.

The convention was a series of speeches and videos of Trump with supporters, and all went to the same theme: Trump is saving America, and the Democrats are socialists and Marxists bent on destroying the country.

WITH FEAR, ADORATION and a series of false or misleading comments, supporters of Donald Trump used the first night of the Republican National Convention Monday to warn voters against Democratic rule and laud Trump as the savior of America.

The event was more about Trump than the vision of Republicans; in fact, the party didn't even write a new 2020 platform, as is typically done at quadrennial conventions. There were no lofty speeches, and few entreaties to Americans about the importance of participating in the democratic process.

Instead, the message of the evening was about one man: Trump, whom speakers credited with the pre-pandemic, booming economy and said Democratic nominee Joe Biden would take the nation to socialist despair.

"Joe Biden and (Sen.) Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution," Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said, using an eerie reference to the 1960s Maoist movement in China. "If we let them, they will turn our country into a socialist utopia," added Scott, the headliner speaker of the evening.

The event had little of the flashy features of the Democratic National Convention, where speeches were interspersed with musical performances and video montages.

Instead, the two and a half hours was a series of speeches and videos of Trump with supporters, and all went to the same theme: Trump is saving America, and the Democrats are socialists and Marxists bent on destroying the country.

Speaker after speaker – most of them taped at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium, near the Trump International Hotel – praised Trump and his leadership, crediting him with everything from negotiating tough trade deals to responding quickly to the coronavirus pandemic which has now killed more than 177,000 Americans.

Trump also accepted the appreciation of nurses and front line workers he hosted in the White House – a video of which was shown as part of the convention – and hyped treatments for COVID that are not recommended by medical experts, including federal government authorities. None wore a mask during the White House sessions.

Polls show that Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis is a major vulnerability for him with lopsided majorities saying he has done a poor job dealing with the pandemic.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, called Trump "the bodyguard of Western Civilization" while a West Virginia nurse, Amy Ford, credited the president with expanding tele-health, a practice which makes it easier for people to get medical care without going into a doctor's office.

In one of the few remarks that went to Trump's character or empathy, House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, recounted how Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited him in the hospital after Scalise was shot and badly wounded by a gunman who attacked Republican lawmakers at baseball practice. "They were there for my family during my darkest hours," Scalise said.

But while there was much adulation for Trump, there was also a warning about Biden and Democrats, who were cast by the speakers as agents of lawlessness, socialism and communism.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St. Louis couple facing criminal charges after pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who marched past their home, played to fears fueled by Trump that suburban neighborhoods would be invaded by outsiders.

The McCloskeys repeated worries Trump himself has vocalized about allowing low-income housing developments in middle-class areas. Saying she was under threat by "a mob of protesters," Patricia McCloskey said, "what you saw happen to us could just as easily happen to any of you who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around the country."

Biden and Democrats, she said, are bent on "abolishing the suburbs altogether," a remark the president has also made. Mark McCloskey referred to the Democratic nominee for Congress in St. Louis, Cori Bush, as a "Marxist revolutionary."

Donald J. Trump, Jr., the president's eldest son, said "the Chinese communist party favors Biden." Nikki Haley, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, warned that "Joe Biden and the socialist left would be a disaster for our economy." And far from being his own man, Biden would be a puppet of the far left, she said.

"Last time, Joe's boss was (Barack) Obama," Haley said. "This time, it would be Pelosi, Sanders and The Squad," she added, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and a team of progressive, female House freshmen members.

Maximo Alvarez, a man whose family fled Fidel Castro's Cuba, said Trump is "fighting the forces of anarchy and communism," and said, "we cannot let them take over our country."

The event was heavy on formal speeches, with a few campaign commercial-like tributes in between. With the convention truncated because of the pandemic, a limited number of delegates met in Charlotte earlier in the day, formally nominating Trump and the vice president, Mike Pence. Trump made a surprise appearance during the roll call vote and is expected to appear in some measure all four nights of the convention – atypical for nominees, who are barely seen until the final night, when they deliver their acceptance speeches.

Trump, in his daytime remarks, played to his hardcore base, and the Monday night event appeared not directed at swing voters. There was no long list of "Democrats for Trump," or of regular voters who voted Democratic in 2016 but now support the GOP president – the reverse of which was on display at the Democratic confab.

Republicans offered a single Democrat, Georgia state legislator Vernon Jones, who said as an African American he felt ignored and taken for granted by his own party.

"The Democrat[ic] party does not want Black people to leave their mental plantation." Jones said.

Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, offered a few words of optimism, saying, "I believe in the goodness of America." The message of the first night of the convention was more targeted: the party believes in Donald Trump.