Party of Rage by Elizabeth Drew | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
The strategy and tone that lay behind this week’s Republican convention in Cleveland, and that have lain behind Donald Trump’s campaign from its outset, reflect a strain that has existed in the Republican Party for nearly fifty years, and that will likely dominate the fall contest. That is, to play on the politics of fear, hatred, and race. In identifying himself as the candidate of angry white middle-class men, Trump took on both their economic and social grievances. It was thus logical that he’d declare, as he did on July 11, echoing Richard Nixon, “I am the candidate of law and order,” and that that theme would be continued in Cleveland. As the convention was opening on Monday, Paul Manafort, who is now more or less in charge of the campaign, said that Trump was modeling his campaign on Nixon’s.
Trump’s disturbing acceptance speech Thursday echoed the menacing cast of the whole convention: Americans have much to fear.
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