Trump accepts Republican nominatio

(Note: The press in general both in US and UK wonders what makes Republican party to endorse Donald Trump as their candidate to be US president in spite of his presenting himself as a divisive prophet of doom for Moslems, migrants and minorities but  shouts “I am your voice!”. But columnists label what he says as  “bull shit”. In any case the report below shows Trump  is totally ignorant of facts. He says police deaths on line of duty increased by 50% under Obama, while the truth is it came down to 62 in number  from 101 under Ronald Reagan. But there is no dearth of crowds to listen to him. Are they all going to witness a tragic comedy? The coming days and months promise good entertainment for American voters. James kottoor, editor)

Donald Trump went big and bad, painting a portrait of a lawless, crisis-struck nation in Cleveland on Thursday night as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination.

 He declared that he alone had the strength to secure the homeland and rejuvenate the economy in a 75-minute speech that pushed familiar buttons. “I am your voice,” he proclaimed. Trump, 70, promised again to build a wall and to suspend immigration from any country that has been “compromised by terrorism” until proven vetting systems are put in place. He offered himself as a “law and order” candidate, and vowed to protect the LGBT community and to speak for “the forgotten men and women of our country – people who work hard but no longer have a voice”.

Donald Trump proclaims himself ‘law and order’ candidate at Republican convention

David Smith offers his verdict on Trump’s address, warning that Trump’s ability to “play the crowd carried too many echoes of the past century to ignore”, and an interpretation of what Trump said and what he meant. Meanwhile, four Guardian US columnists offer their take: “Teleprompter Trump was charmless, deprived of the spontaneity and humour that made him a compelling candidate,” says Jonathan Freedland.

Lucia Graves a Guardian columnist says: After a promise to ‘present the facts plainly and honestly’ Trump did exactly the opposite

You might think that a presidential nominee’s speech should include some nod to policy and platform. But then Donald Trump isn’t a regular presidential nominee.

When he took the stage at the RNC in Cleveland, attendees were treated to over an hour of fear-stoking, race-baiting red meat rhetoric, rife with misinformation, and carefully calculated to appeal to America’s basest instincts. After a promise to “present the facts plainly and honestly”, Trump proceeded to do exactly the opposite.

It wasn’t that he was lying, exactly – a liar is riddled with apprehension that the lies will be discovered, but a bullshitter just doesn’t care. Trump is a master of bullshit, so we shouldn’t be surprised to find many of the “facts” presented “plainly and honestly” were actually not just wrong but exactly the opposite of the truth. Others were cleverly cherrypicked to disguise it.

Casting himself as the “law and order” candidate, Trump painted a portrait of American as fundamentally violent and unsafe. And perhaps the best case in point came when he zeroed in on the recent attacks on police.

“Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” he said. He noted that the number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen “by almost 50% compared to this point last year”.

        That sounds like a powerful statistic until you realize he’s comparing two six-plus month segments of time. Zoom out a little bit and it becomes clear that police are actually safer under Barack Obama than they have been in decades.

A Washington Post report using data from theOfficer Down Memorial Page found the average number of police murders per year by administration has dropped fairly steadily: 101 under Ronald Reagan, 90 under George HW Bush, 81 under Bill Clinton, 72 under George W Bush, and 62 under Obama.

This shameless and baseless fear-mongering is Trump’s best trick. But there’s a reason magicians don’t play the same trick for an audience a thousand times over. Surely people see through Trump’s by now?