Takeaways from the Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention concluded Thursday night with a packed crowd at the White House and fireworks set against the Washington Monument, closing out a week marked by dire warnings about the future of the country if Joe Biden is elected in November and promises for what a second term with President Trump would hold.The four-day event, which kicked off Monday, culminated with Mr. Trump's address accepting the GOP presidential nomination, an event that brought more than 1,500 of his supporters, former White House officials and Republican lawmakers to the South Lawn of the White House.The convention underwent several changes as the coronavirus pandemic roiled the 2020 election, beginning with plans for a large-scale event in Charlotte, North Carolina, then an expansion to include Jacksonville, Florida, followed by a cancellation of major events in both cities as COVID cases spiked. In the end, official party business was carried out in Charlotte, where Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were formally nominated Monday.Speeches throughout the week, many of which were pre-recorded, sought to paint a dark picture of America's future should Biden defeat Mr. Trump in November, while casting the president as vital to protecting the principles the country was founded upon and the "American way of life."Here are the biggest takeaways from the Republican National Convention.The coronavirus pandemic that has crippled the U.S. economy and claimed the lives of more than 180,000 people in the U.S. was seldom mentioned across the convention's four nights of speeches, and was characterized in some instances as a challenge the nation has already been surmounted.In remarks delivered Tuesday, Larry Kudlow, Mr. Trump's chief economic adviser, suggested the coronavirus has been defeated."It was awful," Kudlow said in remarks. On Wednesday night, Pence said four more years of the Trump administration would bring "law and order on the streets of America for every American of every race and creed and color."Ahead of Mr. Trump's speech on Thursday, New York's police union president Pat Lynch accused Democratic politicians of having "surrendered our streets and institutions." Citing the spate of recent crime in New York City, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani warned "don't let Democrats do to America what they have done to New York." Mr. Trump stressed that the GOP "in the strongest possible terms" condemns the looting, arson and violence that has occurred in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and issued a forceful denunciation of the violence in major U.S. cities, including Portland, where he deployed federal law enforcement this summer, Chicago and New York.