https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-edit-commentary-charles-lipson-trump-speech-20200828-jobkmcfa2jgp5pw2wjneqi7ebu-story.html
President Donald Trump’s speech concluding the Republican National Convention took full advantage of the country’s best public housing. Using the White House as a controversial but powerful backdrop, the president spoke directly to America. It was a chance to communicate unfiltered to voters, like his Twitter feed, without media spin.
The speech itself was effective, though it was too long and a bit flat as all teleprompter speeches are. Trump normally enlivens those by going off-script and inserting impromptu remarks. He didn’t do that this time, perhaps because the stakes were so high. The speech suffered for it.
The most important thing it did was frame the election as Trump against Joe Biden. That might seem obvious, but it’s actually different from how Democrats are framing the race. They want it to be a referendum on Trump and especially his often-abrasive personality. That’s why the speech’s harsh criticism of Biden had a second meaning. It reminded voters: You have to choose between me and the other guy, and he’s really bad. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence took advantage of Biden’s still-vague policy proposals by filling in the blanks. Naturally, they painted a picture of radical socialist transformation.
Another striking feature of the speech — indeed the whole GOP convention — was its emphasis on everyday Black families. The Republicans featured numerous African American speakers, some outlining how they had been helped by specific policies, such as criminal justice reform, others talking about Trump’s personal interest in them and their lives.
The goal wasn’t just to increase Trump’s share of the Black vote, which was only 8% in 2016. It was to reassure all voters that the president and his party are not bigots. American voters, to their credit, won’t support candidates they think are racist. Democrats and their media allies have said Trump and his party are. The convention was an effort to overturn that picture.