The theme of the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention was “Make America One Again.”
RNC day 4: Donald Trump gave a scary speech, and the crowd cheered a “proud” gay man
Thursday’s roster was much lighter on politicians than the two days prior. The biggest speakers were venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Ivanka Trump, and the man of the hour himself, Donald Trump.
In case you missed it live, these are the biggest things that happened on the final night of the RNC convention.
1) Donald Trump gave a much-talked-about Nixonian speech
Trump’s speech accepting the nomination was dark. He hit heavily on terrorism, urban criminality, and national decline. He also spoke quite a bit about maintaining “law and order,“ a loaded phrase that has garnered comparisons to Richard Nixon:
I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.
I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials in the country to get the job properly done. In this race for the White House, I am the law and order candidate.
The irresponsible rhetoric of our president, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous environment than frankly I have ever seen and anybody in this room has ever watched or seen.
Trump’s speech was also the longest keynote address from a Republican nominee for president since 1984.
You can read the full transcript here.
2) Peter Thiel told the crowd he was “proud to be gay” — and they cheered
This is really only noteworthy because it happened at the Republican National Convention— both because the party just ratified an especially anti-LGBTQ platform and because the crowd received his declaration so warmly.
At another point, Thiel may or may not have intentionally compared Donald Trump to Marty McFly:
The bright future is promised. When Donald Trump asks us to make America great again, he is not suggesting a return to the past. He is running to lead us back to the bright future. Tonight, I urge all of my fellow Americans to stand up and vote for Donald Trump.
Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
Watch: Trump reaches out to LGBTQ community
3) Ivanka Trump gave a speech for gender equality
Donald Trump is going to “fight for equal pay for equal work.” That’s according to his daughter Ivanka Trump, a mogul in her own right. Her speech focused heavily on how her father would bring gender equity to workplaces across the country.
In my father’s company, there are more female than male executives. Women are paid equally for the work that we do, and when a woman becomes a mother she is supported, not shut out. Women represent 46 percent of the total US labor force, and 40 percent of American households have female primary breadwinners. In 2014, women made 83 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Single women without children earned 94 cents, whereas married mothers made only 77 cents. As researchers have noted, gender is no longer a factor creating the greatest wage discrepancy — motherhood is.
As president, my father will change the labor laws that were put in place at a time when women made up a significant portion of the workforce. He will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all.
4) A black pastor led the arena in an “all lives matter” chant
As we noted last night, one of the major themes of this convention seems to be GOP diversity. Over the course of the week, quite a few people of color took the stage at the Quicken Loans Arena, including Sajid Tarar, founder of Muslims for Trump; Lisa Shin, founder of Korean Americans for Trump; and Lynne Patton, vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation.
This trend was continued on Thursday by Mark Byrne, a black pastor who delivered a particularly passionate speech. Byrne got one of the biggest responses of the night when he declared, “To the Republican party, I support Donald Trump, and under a Donald Trump administration, all lives matter!”
However, afterward, he did express empathy with Black Lives Matter protesters:
Even though I disagree with the tactics and divisive rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter movement, I do understand that hopelessness and lack of opportunity bred this feeling of deprivation. And this is true in many of our [...] underprivileged communities.
For the winners and losers of the Republican convention’s final night, read Vox’s Dylan Matthews.
