GOP warns of ‘era of chaos’ under Biden

President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans opened their national convention on Monday by painting a dire portrait of America if Democrat Joe Biden wins the White House in November, arguing he will usher in an era of radical socialism and chaos.

Trump set the tone early in the day when he addressed delegates in Charlotte, North Carolina, after formally securing their nomination for another term, and claimed without evidence that Democrats were trying to steal the election.

Republicans had vowed to offer an inspiring, positive message in contrast to what they characterized as a dark and gloomy Democratic convention last week. But the first night's prime-time program featured speakers who peppered their remarks with ominous predictions if Democrats win power.

"They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear," Trump campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle said. "They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see, and think, and believe, so they can control how you live."

The four-day convention opened at a critical juncture for Trump, 74, who trails Biden, 77 in national opinion polls during a pandemic that has killed more than 176,000 Americans and erased millions of jobs.

Democrats drew their own dismal picture of what four more years under Trump would look like at their convention last week.

Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son and Guilfoyle's boyfriend, portrayed the ongoing civil unrest as violent assaults on small businesses by anarchists and said Democrats would fail to keep neighborhoods safe.

The convention's opening night also laid out what promises to be a central theme of the week: that Biden, a former vice president, and his running mate, US Senator Kamala Harris, will merely be puppets of radical left-wing activists.

Two Republican rising stars - Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Nikki Haley, Trump's former ambassador to the UN, who is Indian American - dismissed the idea that Biden and his party would be better stewards of minority voter interests.

"In much of the Democratic Party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist," said Haley, widely seen as a possible future presidential contender. "That is a lie."

Earlier in the day, the president repeated his assertion that voting by mail, which is expected to be far more common during the pandemic, will lead to widespread fraud.

As he has done repeatedly, Trump described states' responses to infections of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, in starkly partisan terms, casting lockdowns and other steps recommended by public health officials as attempts to influence voting in November.

"What they're doing is using COVID to steal an election," Trump said of Democrats. "They're using COVID to defraud the American people - all of our people - of a fair and free election."