WaPo Editorial: Donald Trump: The candidate of the apocalypse

By Editorial Board July 21 at 11:36 PM

THESE ARE anxious times in America. Despite a steadily, if slowly, growing economy and the absence of a major war, people remain troubled by a sense of national underperformance and myriad social ills, most recently the surge in racially tinged fatal shootings committed by law enforcement officers and against them. A new Gallup poll reports that only 17 percent of Americans feel satisfied with the way things are going, the lowest percentage since October 2013 — and down 12 points in just the past month.

For many, of course, a cause of concern is Donald Trump, who accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday evening. Belligerent and erratic, Mr. Trump nevertheless has a serious chance to win in November. In his acceptance speech, he sought to enhance his political prospects the only way he knows how: by inflaming public angst, so as to exploit it.

Mr. Trump took real challenges and recast them in terms that were not only exaggerated but also apocalyptic. “The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” he claimed. Though he addressed issues ranging from public safety, to immigration, to trade, Mr. Trump’s proposed solutions all shared a common premise: the way to overcome difficulty is through force. To American companies that exercise their right to move production abroad, the Trump administration will administer unspecified “consequences.” A giant wall will block migrants and drug traffickers along the Mexico border. And “law and order” — an old trope of Richard Nixon and George Wallace that Mr. Trump brought out of retirement — will be restored.

Perhaps politically effective because of their simplicity, Mr. Trump’s now-familiar formulations would fail as actual policies — because they are simplistic. There is no practical prospect, for example, of constructing the wall he insistently touts; even if built, drug traffickers and others could eventually tunnel under it. And, as per usual, last night he added no details to this plan that might convince anyone otherwise.

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