Unity and hope. The former president Donald Trump On Thursday, he sent a message of unity to the United States in his first major speech since the assassination attempt, in which he accepted his electoral nomination and assured that with his victory the country will live the four greatest years in its history. “I stand before you tonight with a message of confidence, strength and hope. (…) I am running for president for all of the United States, not for half of it, because there is no victory by winning only half of it,” he said with his right ear still bandaged.

Trump spoke at the closing ceremony of the Republican National Convention, which opened on Monday in Milwaukee and was intended to confirm his candidacy and that of his “number two”, Ohio Senator JD Vance. The New York tycoon arrived in the city a day after being shot on Saturday in Butler (Pennsylvania) and although he did not speak until Thursday, his presence in the previous days showed that the support of his coreligionists is unwavering.

A commitment to unity was expected, and he himself had admitted that after what happened he had rewritten his speech. And his words did not disappoint. Trump promised a government that would serve Americans “better than ever”: “Nothing will stop me in this mission because our vision is just and our course is pure. “No matter what obstacles come our way, we will not give up, we will not do wrong. We will not back down and I will never stop fighting for you,” he said.

The word “fight” has become popular as a Republican rallying cry. The former president said it with his fist raised on Saturday while being evacuated by law enforcement, as he himself recalled on Thursday in an emotional account of what happened. An account that, he said, he will not say again because it is “too painful.” He told how he is still alive for having turned his head to show a graphic about immigration and said that although there was blood everywhere, in a certain way he felt “very safe” because he perceived God on his side.

In his speech he barely mentioned the current president, Democrat Joe Biden, or his vice president, Kamala Harris, although he did not skimp on criticism of his rival party. “We should not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement, which is what is happening lately in our country at a level that no one has seen before. The Democratic Party should immediately stop using the judicial system as a weapon and labelling political opponents as enemies of democracy,” he said. These elections, he said, should focus on the country’s problems and how to make it “successful, great and free again”: “At a time when our politics too often divides us, it is time to remember that we are all fellow citizens. We are one nation under God, indivisible.”

There was no shortage of allusions to the “migrant invasion,” pointing out that he will close the border with Mexico on the first day of his hypothetical second term and maintaining the strong anti-immigration rhetoric that characterizes him. He also accused the Biden Administration of “destroying” Social Security and assured that his government will end inflation. Venezuela is safer than the US

His tone was more restrained than usual, but his tirade turned to his usual enemieseven using humor to do so. The next Republican convention, he said, will be held in Venezuela because that country is safer than the United States due to all the “criminals” who have arrived in the North American country.

It was a speech that lasted just over an hour and a half, longer than expected because the former president improvised on numerous occasions. And it was received, unsurprisingly, with a resounding ovation. The Republican union was both political and familial. Trump has been accompanied in Milwaukee these days by his children Tiffany, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. and by the wife and fiancée of the latter two, Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, but two central figures were missing: his wife, Melania, and his daughter Ivanka. Both of them took a while to arrive.

Ivanka appeared in the presidential box on Thursday afternoon alongside her husband, Jared Kushner, and Melania did so just before the former president spoke. Smiling and dressed in red, she joined the rest of the clan and at the end of the night gave him a warm kiss on the cheek. The conservative campaign, which closed the party with the traditional dropping of red, white and blue balloons, the colors of the American flag, is now beginning a two-part phase.

Trump and Vance will hold their first joint rally in Michigan on Saturdaya state that the Republican won in 2016 and Biden in 2020. The conservatives thus seem to be gaining unstoppable momentum at a time when the Democrats are losing strength. They are 3.1 points behind in voting intentions and the pressures for Biden to withdraw suggest an imminent abandonment.

Republicans, Trump concluded, are more united than ever. In November, “we will win, we will win, we will win.”

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