Donald Channels the Dark Side: Compare His Disturbing Acceptance Speech to Republicans of Years Past

The Republican Party is now the party of Donald Trump, and his official acceptance of the nomination made America seem like a grim place. But Republican nominees didn't always speak this way.

Trump spoke of America being on the decline (blaming in no small part Hillary Clinton), in a move past Republican nominees would have frowned upon.

"Don't let anyone tell you that America is second rate, especially somebody running for president," George H.W. Bush said at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. 

And Trump's anti-immigration platform, which took center-stage Thursday night, would have been condemned by America's last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, who in his 2012 RNC speech said the following:

"We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better."

There's not a single mention of the words "illegal" or "undocumented" in Romney's entire speech—just four years ago—when America's unauthorized immigration population had begun to level off. 

How did John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon compare in their speeches to today's Republican nominee? 

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