Donald Trump's big speech: A fierce attack on Biden that failed to offer any comfort to black Americans
The President came out with guns blazing.Donald Trump's target was Joe Biden. So much so, that Biden's name was spoken more than 40 times in a speech that lasted just over an hour.Biden is a centrist, establishment political figure. But the way Trump told it, Biden is a socialist agitator who threatens America and who sides with anarchists and looters.
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If Trump can succeed in selling that far-fetched portrait of his opponent, he still has a chance of winning his coveted second term.
The whole speech on Thursday night felt more like a Trump rally than a formal speech to accept his party's nomination for the presidency.
The setting was the most notable feature, and one that has outraged his critics who say the President has used federal property as a backdrop for a nakedly political agenda.
For this was the South Lawn of the White House, overlooking the National Mall and the Washington Monument.
Two thousand people were in the audience despite the pandemic and few were wearing masks. That in itself was a defiant political statement.
Despite his assault on Biden and the Democrats, the most notable aspect of the speech was what Trump did not say.
He made no attempt to reach out to the Black community, despite its anguish.
No mention was made of the shooting of Jacob Blake.No mention was made of pro-police white vigilante violence, only of socialist anarchists and of left-wing mobs.
The President even suggested police officers and Governors should be more aggressive, and be quicker to ask for federal reinforcements.A few hundred metres away we watched a very different scene unfold - protesters furious with a President who appears to be ignoring the grievances of black Americans.
These activists reject Trump's very notion of law and order. They see the President as an agent of chaos, deliberately stoking racial tension.After his speech, this showman President had a surprise in store - a spectacular fireworks display on the National Mall with a message in the sky that read "Trump 2020".
At the end of the night, as he watched the fireworks with his extended family at his side, Trump looked grim. He wasn't punching the air. There was no adrenaline flowing.The President seemed, as he would put it, low energy.Perhaps as he stood there in the warm August night air Trump realized that he might be a one-term President.A leader whose legacy would forever be tarnished by his inability to display the most important presidential quality of all.Empathy.