The Washington Post Editors Aren't Mincing Words

[Content Note: Bigotry; fearmongering.]

This is their actual headline: "Donald Trump: The candidate of the apocalypse."

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.

Trump's claim is that he is the only one who can save us from the nightmare that is a "humiliated" and "dangerous" America. It is the claim of a strongman. It is the claim of a person who cannot be trusted with our future.

Here is the WaPo's fact-checking of just some of Trump's many outrageous claims used to stoke fear during his address last night.