Thirteen months ago when Donald Trump launched his bid for the White House, almost everyone believed he was a flash in the pan and it was a long shot. Now, he is just one step away from the US' highest office. At the recent Republican National Convention, Trump officially captured the GOP presidential nomination.

Just like Trump's previous campaign, the convention is a continuity of his winning strategy - instigating fear, resentment and antagonism among the public.

As a master of manipulating negativity, he is capitalizing on the confusion and insecurity of the US working class. By inviting to the convention grieving parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants and Benghazi radicals, furious cops whose colleagues were shot dead by extremists, and some demagogues who are good at whipping up angry hysteria, the entire event was rife with excoriation of the Obama government - and the actual message is that Hillary Clinton would be worse.

The really disturbing message the convention has presented is that the GOP platform, in a 66-page policy document, seems to have given in to Trump's wackiness. Trump's personal beliefs have astonishingly become the platform's beliefs, such as setting up a wall along the US-Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration. This is putting in danger the progressive achievements the US has made in the last decades. Think about all the great Republican presidents like Abraham Lincoln, which the Trump version of the GOP is derailing.

The convention displays a Trump-led GOP full of anger and ultra-conservatism, which even reminds the people across the Pacific Ocean of what we endured during the 10-year calamitous Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) - like struggle sessions. China is mentioned more than 20 times in the document, and none of these are in a positive context. From its perspective, China should take responsibility for a lot of the US' failings.

The severity of this round of China-bashing, although a routine tactic in the US presidential season, is one of the harshest, indicating how desperate Trump is to paper over the US' own problems and create an illusion that he has the solutions.

Trump's rise is an alert not only to the US, but also to the Western world. The US has been proud for decades of its political, economic and social vitality as a role model for Western democracies and an attraction to the rest.

However, the prevalence of Trumpism is ruining the aura.

The US has a lot of worries about the rest of the world, but now it has become a source of great concern. Trumpism won't make the US great, safe or rich again, because a great, safe and rich country believes in pluralism, open-mindedness and cooperation, which the US is casting away.