What Went Down During President Trump’s Closing Speech At The RNC

George M. Cohan’s “You’re A Grand Old Flag” is playing, and interestingly, that early-20th-century tune was originally supposed to say “grand old rag” in reference to a quote he heard from a Civil War veteran about the U.S. flag, but the use of “rag” seemed pejorative to some people, so he just used “flag” instead.

One thing is pretty clear after tonight: Trump is going to be campaigning against Democratic-run cities. This might not have been the most exciting night of the past two weeks of political conventions, but we got a big clue about what one of Trump’s priorities will be. Buckle up — we are going to be hearing a lot more about law and order over the next few months.

I thought that this was shaping up to be higher-energy night than Nights 2 and 3, but Trump’s acceptance speech was just inexplicably long and not especially well-written or well-delivered. As I always say when we cover these things, that isn’t meant as a prediction of how the public will react. But the Trump campaign is behind, and it could really have pared the speech down to, say, two major themes instead of running through the whole laundry list.