The one word media outlets are using to describe Trump's speech

In the national media's coverage of Donald Trump's marathon acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, there was arguably one descriptor that ruled them all: "Dark."

"Donald Trump Takes America on a Journey to the Dark Side," read NBC News' headline.


For The New York Times: "His Tone Dark, Donald Trump Takes GOP Mantle."

POLITICO's Shane Goldmacher described Trump's address as "a deeply negative speech that described a darkening America," and a cursory Google News search of the words "Trump" and "dark" yielded more than a few press accounts and opinion pieces using similarly tenebrous language.

"Mr. Trump took real challenges and recast them in terms that were not only exaggerated but also apocalyptic," wrote the editorial board of The Washington Post, which concluded, "Mr. Trump began his speech by presenting himself as the bearer of painful but necessary truth. And no doubt, for many of his listeners, his words expressed a deeply felt emotional reality. There is real fear in the land; real pain. But it will take real leadership, not the wishful, demagogic brand Mr. Trump embodied Thursday night, to address this."

The New York Times' editorial board described Trump's "dark vision of America" in which immigrants "are 'prime sources of violence in our streets and chaos in our communities,'" and that the United States is seen internationally as a "disrespected, humiliated nation."

"This is not only factually false, it’s a wildly distorted view of all the nation stands for. One would think that if Mr. Trump believed this dystopia existed, he would have a clear and detailed plan for change," the Times' editorial board continued. "But, as always, he has only his empty sales pitch to offer — 'I’m with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you,' he says."

It wasn't just print media. CNN was broadcasting its morning-after coverage with the chyron, "Was Donald Trump's speech too dark?"

But the tone was assuredly brighter on "Fox & Friends," where co-host Brian Kilmeade praised Trump's performance.

"I mean, he was strong and you saw him gain momentum, instead of being nervous," Kilmeade said. "But he's trying to say, essentially, is listen, I did a pretty good job with my family. Don't you agree? Yeah. I did a pretty good job with my business, don’t you agree? I'd like to do it for you. And yesterday was the first time we got a personal feel of what he's like to do business with."

The Trump campaign blasted out an email with the subject line "Trump Delivers," prominently featuring a positive New York Post column.

"Donald Trump needed to give the speech of his life–he did that, and much more," columnist Michael Goodwin wrote. "He laid out an inspiring American Manifesto for our troubled times. And he did it his way."

And it wasn't all doom and gloom on CNN. Political analyst David Gregory put forward Ivanka Trump, who delivered a well-received speech introducing the nominee, as the most powerful political proxy for her father.

"So much of his time in such a long speech is filled with a very personal, dark vision for America, a kind of personal politics. He has to rely on Ivanka Trump," Gregory said. "I don't know that he can do that between now and Election Day, but he can certainly rely on her as probably his most important surrogate."

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," which has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Trump after a series of squabbles between the candidate and host Joe Scarborough, there was light in the darkness.

"I may be standing alone here. I think Donald Trump did what Donald Trump was supposed to do. I don't know if they expected sunshine and flowers," Scarborough remarked Friday morning, mocking those who said, "‘It was a dark speech.'"

"We have been saying for two months now with everybody's low approval ratings that you're not going to win the presidency, you're going to disqualify the other candidate. We have been saying it for months now. Everybody acting so shocked that conventions are sometimes negative. Remember, poor George? He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth," he said, in reference to Ann Richards' speech slamming Vice President George W. Bush at the 1988 Democratic convention. "They are always personal."

After Bloomberg Politics' Mark Halperin remarked that Trump "may have executed the wrong thing," Scarborough responded, "He certainly executed the wrong thing for the media elites that were watching last night, and everybody said, oh, a dark speech."

"Listen. It's not the speech I would have given. It's not the speech any of us would have given," the former congressman said. "It just may be the speech that millions and millions of people in middle America have been waiting to hear for a very long time. Mike Barnicle, you have been talking about how people are scared, for years. They're scared because their 401(k) Is disappearing. They're scared because they can't get their kids in school. They're scared because they're not doing as well as their parents did. And you have been talking about this week how he's delivered a message for an America that’s not that scared. I don't think we're scared because economically, we're OK. But you know a lot of people in middle America are scared," he said, suggesting that message might play better away from the coasts.

Trump was consistent in his message throughout his campaign, panelist Mike Barnicle remarked, but added that Americans in despair "want to feel a little hope for their children."

Willie Geist, meanwhile, said Trump evoked a "Mad Max"-style dystopia that perhaps not everyone in the U.S. knows, while co-host Mika Brzezinski commented, "I think a lot of people feel that way."

"Certainly, the conversations we had on this show over the past two years have been talking about the decline of America, the decline of our infrastructure," Brzezinski said. "So you know, I think he was actually going there on a number of levels."

And while former RNC Chairman Michael Steele found the speech "dystopian and dark" in text, "the way he delivered it was almost as if he took that darkness and he attached feeling to it," he remarked. "There was emotion to it."

Discussing Trump's "I am your voice" line, Scarborough pronounced it a "strong, strong portion of the speech ... that elites in the media, that elites in Washington, D.C., and elites in think tanks aren't going to line up with.

"But you know what? You never hear that type of speech, especially on trade, unless it's a union leader speaking the second afternoon on a Democratic convention stage," Scarborough said. "You don't hear that from nominees these days. You had a Republican nominee last night going after NAFTA. You had a Republican nominee talking about horrible trade deals, how it's gutting working-class Americans. I don't know if it wins in the end, when Al Gore went populist, that hurt him, supposedly, in 2000. I'm just going to say, in 2016, I think that connects, and with a lot of voters in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, and in other states."