CLEVELAND — The theme of the first night of the Republican National Convention was “Make America Safe Again,” but an alternative title could have been “America Is a Scary Place.” A series of grieving parents, politicians and law enforcement officers made the case that the country and the world are frightening and under siege from illegal immigration, crime and terror.
“Sadly, for a growing number of communities the sense of safety that many of us once took for granted has been shattered,” said David Clarke, the sheriff of Milwaukee, who strongly opposes criminal justice reform and the Black Lives Matter movement. “Americans no longer feel safe.”
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also hammered on the theme of an unsafe America, arguing that liberal politicians divide the country into white and black America instead of uniting as “one America.” “What happened to it? Where did it go? How did it float away?” Giuliani asked.
“The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe. They fear for their children and they fear for themselves,” he said. The convention also heard wrenching personal accounts over the course of the night from seven parents who lost their children to war, terror attacks or incidents with undocumented immigrants.
Pat Smith spoke about her son dying in the 2012 Benghazi attack, saying she personally blamed Hillary Clinton for his death. Jamiel Shaw Sr. described in detail the murder of his 17-year-old son by a gang member who lived in the country illegally.
Mary Ann Mendoza described the death of her son by a drunk driver also in the U.S. illegally. Sabine Durden told the crowd about her son dying in a car accident caused by an undocumented immigrant. Karen Vaughn spoke of her Navy SEAL son Aaron’s death in Afghanistan.
And Kent Terry and Kelly Terry-Willis addressed the crowd via video about the death of their brother, a Border Patrol agent, as part of Operation Fast and Furious.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, described the country as “under siege” by terrorism and illegal immigration. At one point McCaul asked if America was respected by the world. Republican delegates shouted, “No!”
Violent crime has been trending downward for several decades, but a spate of violent incidents in the past several weeks at home and abroad has dominated the news and national dialogue. This past weekend, three police officers were killed in Baton Rouge, La., following the death of five police officers in Dallas by a man who said he wanted to kill white officers.
Before that, the killing of two black men by police spurred protests around the country, spurring the Black Lives Matter movement to demand policing reforms.
Abroad, a truck attack in Nice, France, last week by a terrorist killed dozens of spectators, the latest in a series of attacks in Western Europe, some of which have been linked to the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, another RNC keynote speaker on Monday, spoke of the threat of radical Islamic terror while images of ISIS flashed behind him on a giant screen. “What keeps me up at night is the sobering realization that evil exists,” Flynn said. (He later led a chant of “Lock her up!” — referring to Clinton.)
Trump’s appearance, introducing his wife, Melania, was a brief bright spot in a very dark night. He entered to a fog machine while “We Are the Champions” by Queen blared on the speakers. “We’re going to win so big,” he said.