For the Record: Donald Trump wants you to be very afraid

Dear readers: Are you afraid? Do your hands tremble as you read this, threatening to drop your smartphone toward the depths of the floor below and shattering its screen into a million hopeless shards as Hillary Clinton has done to our dreams and once-perfect union?

Yes? Then you’re right where Donald Trump wants you.

After a rollercoaster convention that at times seemed off the rails, Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination Thursday and delivered a forceful message to Americans: You should be afraid, very afraid, and I alone can save you.

It’s For the Record, USA TODAY’s politics newsletter, and America is burning. Or so we're told.

Trump: 'I alone can fix it'

So, how ‘bout that speech? Over the course of an hour and 15 minutes – the longest acceptance address in four decades –Trump shouted out a grim portrayal of America and the world beyond.

Everything’s crumbling, Trump said, and America is under attack on all sides. Violence pours over our borders and floods our communities, he explained, taking the forms of Syrian refugees, undocumented immigrants and generally bad people.

“We don't want them in our country,” Trump said of immigrants fleeing terrorized nations.

Despite that overall crime in the U.S. has actually been falling for decades, Trump evoked the police shootings and terrorist attacks of recent weeks to warn of dangers that “threaten our very way of life."

The only solution, Donald Trump said confidently, is Donald Trump.

“I am your voice,” he told America, declaring that “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

And Trump means “I alone,” as USA TODAY’s Paul Singer and Cooper Allen noted: The word “together” appears just once in his speech.

Is Trump’s picture of America accurate? Sort of: His statements checked by PolitiFact came up mostly half true.

Will a lot of Americans believe it’s accurate? Probably. After all, Trump implored listeners to “believe me” seven times in his speech, per NPR. And roughly two-thirds of Americans think the country’s going the wrong way, in one direction or the other.

Pre-speech controversy: Trump’s not hot on NATO

Leading up to Trump’s dark address, another flap unfolded over NATO and his support for its members (or lack thereof). In a The New York Times interview, Trump suggested he would only help America’s NATO allies who have “fulfilled their obligations to us,” including those under attack.

Trump said he’d “prefer to be able to continue” existing NATO agreements were he president, but, you know, #AmericaFirst.

“We are going to take care of this country first before we worry about everyone else in the world,” he said.

The remarks flew in the face of NATO’s foundational premise that an attack on one member country is an attack on all. Democrats were outraged, and even some Republicans who cheered on Trump this week disagreed.

Trump’s comment was just “a rookie mistake,” according to Republican leader Mitch McConnell. That’s comforting.

An uncontrolled convention

Thursday’s NATO uproar followed a series of “unforced errors” by the Trump team throughout the convention, according to veteran GOP strategist Frank Donatelli, which suggest “a thin campaign that was basically riding a wave and not controlling events."

Susan Page, our Washington Bureau Chief, sums up the slips and stumbles that made up Republicans’ convention week.

• Monday: The convention’s opening day was temporarily upended by “Never Trump” delegates who tried to protest the candidate by pushing for a rules change.
   
• Tuesday: Trump’s campaign insisted that Melania Trump’s convention speech didn’t plagiarize a whole section from Michelle Obama’s convention speech in 2008. On Wednesday, a Trump employee admitted that, yeah, OK, the speech was indeed “inspired” by Obama.
   
• Wednesday: In the endorsement not heard round the world, Ted Cruz used his prime-time convention slot to tell Republicans to “vote your conscience” instead of telling them to vote for Donald Trump. Jeers, boos, and cat calls followed.

From the convention floor

• GOP delegates: Are you kidding? The week went great! (USA TODAY)
• Did Ted Cruz commit political suicide? Only if Trump wins (USA TODAY)
• Woodstock to GOP: Uh, you guys ripped off our logo (Poughkeepsie Journal)
• Pedicab confessions: secret sadness in Cleveland (USA TODAY)
• Amid protests, Cleveland’s police chief was everywhere (USA TODAY)

LEGO Batman sings Trump’s convention speech

“DARKNESS … THE OPPOSITE OF LIGHT … SUPER RICH. KINDA MAKES IT BETTER.”

Could this be Trump’s campaign theme song?