(CN) — An abnormal and crisis-clouded Republican Convention came to an end on Thursday night as orators double-downed on “law and order” as President Donald Trump accepted the party’s re-nomination on the lawn of the White House.
The final night of the convention, titled “Land of Greatness,” was intended to highlight “America’s long history of greatness, how President Trump is restoring that greatness, and how he will keep fighting for it in a second term.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson were among the GOP stars to applaud Trump on Thursday for moves that include his handling of race issues.
"One of the first things he did as president was bring the Office of Historically Black Colleges and Universities into the White House so that it could get proper attention and financial support. Before the pandemic, African American unemployment was at an all-time low,” Carson said.
He added that President Trump does not “dabble in identity politics,” Rather, Carson said, “He wants everyone to succeed and believes in the adage, 'a rising tide lifts all boats.'”
“Many on the other side love to incite division by claiming that President Trump is a racist. They could not be more wrong,” he added.
Trump has been criticized for his portrayal of equality protesters as “anarchists.” Recent polling finds that Americans believe the president is doing little to improve race relations. A Fox News poll released in August found more people trusted Democratic candidate Joe Biden over Trump on handling race relations, 53% to 34%.
“Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens," Trump said in his acceptance speech. "And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”
“The problem we have right now is that we are in Donald Trump’s America,” Biden said in a Thursday interview on MSNBC. “He views this as a political benefit to him, he is rooting for more violence, not less. He is pouring gasoline on the fire.”
Alongside Pat Lynch, the head of New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, the prominent speakers slammed Biden for an alleged disdain of law enforcement.
“Like cops across this country, we are staring down the barrel of a public safety disaster. More than one thousand people have been shot and three hundred killed in New York City so far this year,” Lynch said.
According to Lynch, Democrats in power are shunning law enforcement and passing laws that he says are making it hard for officers to do their jobs.
His comments come two days after a 17-year-old white Illinois resident allegedly shot and killed two Black Lives Matter protesters during a demonstration over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“Donald Trump has failed at the most basic and important job of a president of the United States: He failed to protect the American people, plain and simple,” Biden's running mate Senator Kamala Harris said in a counter-programming speech.
Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell on Thursday warned viewers that Democrats did not want to “improve life in America,” adding that they “want to tell you what kind of car you can drive. What information you can consume. Even how many hamburgers you can eat."
In July, sparked by Black Lives Matter protests against the killing of George Floyd and against systemic police brutality, Biden referred to Trump as America’s first racist president.