MSN | GOP convention: Republicans pitch Trump as an empathetic leader protecting the country from Democrats on convention’s first night

Attempting to rewrite history during the first night of the Republican National Convention, the GOP tried to portray President Donald Trump on Monday as a caring leader who quickly confronted the coronavirus, while casting Joe Biden as an ultra-liberal who threatens the American way of life.

The many speakers throughout the night hammered those themes as they tried to change voters’ perceptions about Trump’s haphazard handling of the pandemic and his failure to put forward any kind of coherent national strategy for slowing the virus as he railed against governors and insisted it would magically disappear.

Though the night was aimed at firing up Trump’s base with attacks on what was framed as Biden’s socialist agenda and dark portrayals of Democratic protesters as a left wing mob, the GOP also deployed two of its most compelling speakers — former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott — to argue that Trump’s policies have lifted up a diverse array of American families and that Democrats have gone too far with their claims of systematic racism in the US.

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