Cooper Allen

USA TODAY

In the 2012 campaign, President Obama's sharpest jabs at Mitt Romney didn't extend much beyond the GOP nominee's business record at Bain Capital.

What a difference four years makes.

On Thursday in Reno, this year's Democratic standard-bearer, Hillary Clinton, unleashed a blistering series of critiques against Donald Trump and the "alt-right" movement that she said he's embraced, offering a snapshot of a campaign that's featured rhetoric between the two candidates unprecedented in modern memory.

Clinton links Trump to white nationalist 'alt-right' movement

Here are Clinton's four most pointed attack lines against Trump:

He's not just unqualified, he's 'sinister'

Clinton has often blasted Trump as unfit to be commander in chief, but Thursday she attempted to paint the GOP nominee as more than just inexperienced.

"From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party."

"Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough. But what he’s doing here is more sinister."

Tough stuff, but we're just getting started.

He has a long history of racism

Trump has been criticized across the political spectrum since his campaign's launch for his often provocative rhetoric on immigration and race. On Thursday, Clinton made the case that this wasn't just overheated rhetoric but rather a glimpse into the man himself.

"A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the internet, should never run our government or command our military."

"It is hard to believe anyone — let alone a nominee for president — could really believe all the things he says. But here's the hard truth: There is no other Donald Trump. This is it."

She went on to recount past litigation he's faced for alleged discriminatory business practices, saying "the pattern continued through the decades."

His campaign is 'a steady stream of bigotry'

Clinton recounted a laundry list of Trump's most notorious positions, from his leading role in the birther movement to his recent widely criticized remark questioning the fairness of a federal judge over his "Mexican heritage." She also took aim at some of his most controversial social media postings, making the case that Trump not only made racially charged statements but offered a megaphone to some of the more virulently racist elements in American society.

"This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name 'white-genocide-TM.' Trump took this fringe bigot with a few dozen followers and spread his message to 11 million people. His campaign famously posted an anti-Semitic image — a Star of David imposed over a sea of dollar bills — that first appeared on white supremacist websites."

She went on to lambast Trump for championing "discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones."

He's elevated an 'extremist fringe' to lead his campaign

The Democratic presidential nominee also singled out Trump's recent appointment of Stephen Bannon, the former Breitbart chairman, to be CEO of his campaign. Breitbart, she said, champions "an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘alt-right.’”

"The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for this group, a fringe element that has effectively taken over the Republican Party. And this is part of a broader story — the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world."

So how did Trump respond?

The GOP presidential nominee took to Twitter (where else?) shortly after Clinton concluded her remarks, blasting her for, among other things, "pandering to the worst instincts in our society."

In case you were wondering, Friday marks exactly one month until the first showdown between these two.

2016 general election debate schedule