Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination this week vowing to end crime and violence in the US - but it was his "well-crafted demagoguery" that struck most commentators.

Speaking for more than an hour at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, Trump used "dark imagery and an almost angry tone" to portray the US as a "diminished and even humiliated nation", wrote the New York Times.Outlining his plans to "put America first", the White House hopeful "offered himself as an all-powerful saviour who could resurrect the country's standing in the eyes of both enemies and law-abiding Americans", the newspaper added.Trump's speech invoked "a nightmarish American hellscape that doesn't actually exist", said Ezra Klein at Vox, adding that for the first time since he began covering US politics, he was "genuinely afraid" - not of crime and immigration, but of having "a narcissist, a bully and a dilettante" running for president.story_article_left1Slate's chief political correspondent, Jamelle Bouie, said the message was indeed "clear and terrifying" and that the Republican Party was now "a party of overt white nationalism".Trump's speech was "dangerously good", said The Economist, "carefully, even at times brilliantly constructed, bearing the hallmark of skilled writers and well-honed legal minds who captured the essence of Trumpism".Hillary Clinton should "fear a Donald Trump whose demagoguery is so well-crafted" and the "world should fear this man who sells himself as a new Caesar", it said.Trump said that as president he would not automatically defend Nato allies against Russia.In an interview with the New York Times, he said the US would only come to the aid of allies if they had "fulfilled their obligations to us".His position directly opposes the legally binding treaty signed by all 28 Nato members, according to which nations agree to come to the defence of any member under attack.The BBC's Jonathan Marcus said it struck at the "fundamental basis" of the Atlantic alliance: that an attack on one ally was an attack on all.Trump's comments would "send a chill" through Baltic members of Nato, like Estonia and Latvia, which have witnessed growing Russian aggression on their borders, said BuzzFeed News.Clinton was quick to condemn Trump, saying that it is now "fair to assume" that Vladimir Putin is rooting for a Trump presidency. "Republicans, Democrats and Independents who help build Nato into the most successful military alliance in history would all come to the same conclusion: Trump is temperamentally unfit and fundamentally ill-prepared to be our commander-in-chief," she said.Journalists and analysts from across the political spectrum had reacted with "horror and disbelief" to the billionaire's comments, according to the media watchdog Media Matters for America.sub_head_start In Quotes sub_head_endOn success: "Everything in life is luck."On his hair: "I actually don't have a bad hairline. When you think about it, it's not bad. I mean, I get a lot of credit for comb-overs. But it's not really a comb-over."On the US: "The country is going to hell, we have people who don't know what they're doing in Washington."story_article_right2On getting elected: "We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning."On his hard life: "My whole life really has been a 'no' and I fought through it ... It has not been easy for me ... My father gave me a small loan of $1-million."On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best ... They're sending people that have lots of problems ... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."On Muslims (after the San Bernardino shooting): "[I am] calling for a ... shutdown of Muslims entering the US until [we] can figure out what the hell is going on."On Syrians: "I won't take in 200000 Syrians who could be ISIS."On North Korea's Kim Jong-un: "You've got to give him credit ... It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. This guy doesn't play games."On his private parts: "He referred to my hands - 'if they're small, something else must be small'. I guarantee you there's no problem."On abortion: "There has to be some form of punishment [for the woman]." (He reversed his position two hours later.)..