CLEVELAND (Ohio, US): A triumphant Donald Trump accepted the Republican White House nomination on Thursday, promising fearful Americans he would restore “safety” to a country mired in crises that had lost its way.

Trump “humbly and gratefully” endorsed the Republican mantle before 2,000 raucous party activists in Cleveland, in a strikingly populist speech that offered a dark view of today’s America.

Between defining chants of “U-S-A” and “Trump, Trump, Trump” the mogul-turned-TV-star-turned-politico cast himself as the “law and order candidate” and vowed to champion “people who work hard but no longer have a voice.”

“I am your voice,” he declared pointing into the cameras, promising a return to more secure times with “millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth.” Tapping into public angst over recent racially-tinged shootings and seemingly indiscriminate terror attacks, Trump offered a tough-on-crime message that was reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s election-winning strategy in 1968.

The “crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end,” he said.

“Beginning on January 20, of 2017, safety will be restored.” But Trump also showed why he is one of the most controversial US politicians in living memory.

Speaking for over an hour, he repeated many of the hard right themes from a bruising primary campaign.

Foreigners from terror-linked countries would be banned, a wall will be built on the Mexican border and trade deals would be ripped up and renegotiated.

“Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he said.

One-time presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, a Democrat, took umbrage.

“Trump: ‘I alone can fix this.’ Is this guy running for president or dictator?’” he tweeted.

But the Republican party rank-and-file lapped it up, rising to its feet in standing ovation after standing ovation and displaying none of the divisions that have plagued the four-day convention.

“I think Donald is very real, and I like that about him,” said Dayna Dent, 69, retired, a delegate from Washington state.

This, a Trump top aide remarked, is now the “party of Trump.” Many of the Republican old guard had stayed away.

The real estate scion’s acceptance speech was his first major primetime address to the nation and the opening salvo of November’s general election.

Nationwide polls put Trump, who has never held elected office, almost neck and neck with Clinton, the former secretary of state heavily criticized over an email scandal.

Clinton will formally accept the Democratic nomination at her own convention next week.

Trump painted her as corrupt, incompetent and hopelessly out of touch.

“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness,” he said.

Clinton fired off an icy rebuke on Twitter, telling him: “We are better than this.”

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016