The steady image Republicans are aiming to portray of President Donald Trump was running into a turbulent reality.
The police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has sparked a new round of protests. A potentially catastrophic hurricane that is nearly a category five storm was bearing down on the gulf coast, wildfires have ravaged huge areas of California and the still-raging coronavirus pandemic is killing more than 1000 Americans a day.
The historic convergence of health, economic, environmental and social emergencies is only increasing the pressure on Trump, as he looks to reshape the contours of his lagging campaign against former Vice-President Joe Biden with election day just 10 weeks off and early voting beginning much sooner.
The GOP's convention response to those growing challenges has been uneven. While Trump has issued tweets about the hurricane, few convention speakers addressed it or the wildfires.
The convention line-up has included speakers who have been at odds with the Black Lives Matter movement, including a St Louis couple who brandished guns and the Kentucky Attorney-General who has not yet filed charges in the death of a woman killed by police.
Adding still another controversial element, the NBA postponed three playoff games after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for their game following the shooting of Blake. The WNBA and Milwaukee Brewers quickly followed suit with their games.
That was before Vice-President Mike Pence spoke from Baltimore's Fort McHenry, where an 1814 battle inspired the National Anthem. Trump has strongly criticised athletes who kneel rather than stand during the anthem in protest of racial injustice.
Convention speakers were reinforcing Trump's law-and-order message, warning that electing Biden would lead to violence in American cities spilling into the suburbs, a message with racist undertones. Trump tweeted about sending federal agents to Kenosha to help quell unrest, and the Justice Department said it was sending in the FBI and federal marshals.
Trump's campaign believes his aggressive response will help him with suburban women voters who may be concerned by the protests — though it may only deepen his deficit with black voters.
Michael McHale, the president of the National Association of Police Organisations, told the convention, "The violence and bloodshed we are seeing in these and other cities isn't happening by chance. It's the direct result of refusing to allow law enforcement to protect our communities. Joe Biden has turned his candidacy over to the far-left, anti-law enforcement radicals."
And Burgess Owens, a former NFL player now running for Congress in Utah, declared, "This November, we stand at a crossroads. Mobs torch our cities while popular members of Congress promote the same socialism my father fought against in World War II."
- AP
