GREENVILLE (NYTIMES) - President Donald Trump road-tested his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen on Wednesday (July 17), casting them as avatars of anti-American radicalism and reiterating his call for them to leave the country, in a preview of a slash-and-burn re-election strategy that depicts Mr Trump as a bulwark against a "dangerous, militant hard left".

"These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force for evil," Mr Trump told a packed arena here.

To roaring applause, the President railed against what he called "hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down".

"They don't love our country," he said. "I think, in some cases, they hate our country. You know what? If they don't love it, tell them to leave it."

In recent days, similar comments by Mr Trump have been met with repugnance across the country. But the capacity crowd in an arena at East Carolina University seemed to savour them.

After Mr Trump reeled off several controversial comments made by one of the four congresswomen, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, including ones that he depicted as sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, the crowd started up a rousing chant of "Send her back! Send her back!"

It was the latest sign that the President's plan for winning a second term in office involves playing to racial and nationalist themes that shock the consciences of many Americans but which seem to delight his most ardent supporters.

Mr Trump doubled down with relish on his previous calls for the four congresswomen - Ms Omar, Ms Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ms Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ms Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts - to "go back" to their countries of origin, even though all but one were born in the United States and all four are citizens. It left no doubt that he was undaunted by furious condemnations of his remarks as racist, including a Tuesday vote by the House.

As his raucous audience booed repeatedly at his mentions of the women, the atmosphere had echoes of a pro-wrestling match at which the crowd thrills in its collective disdain for the villain of the moment.

Wednesday night's event was billed as a "Keep America Great" rally - a boastful variant of Mr Trump's 2016 campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again".

"Big Rally tonight in Greenville, North Carolina," the president tweeted early on Wednesday, saying he would play up economic growth and the booming stock market in a state that has narrowly tilted right in the past two presidential contests.

Many Republicans, including some of Mr Trump's advisers, wish he would stick to those themes, saying they think that he is overshadowing an economic success story by engaging in name-calling and divisive cultural clashes. Some feel that his relentless focus on immigration and other nationalist themes before November's midterm elections alienated suburban swing voters and helped enable Democrats to win the House.

But while the President did devote time to the nation's recent economic growth and took credit for data showing that China's gross domestic product is growing at its slowest rate in 27 years, he was most animated when attacking his Democratic rivals, particularly Ms Omar, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, Ms Tlaib and Ms Pressley, who are collectively known as "the squad".

Mr Trump denounced Ms Ocasio-Cortez for branding federal migrant detention centres along the south-western border "concentration camps", saying she had, in effect, called border agents Nazis. And he recalled the way Ms Tlaib had used what he called a "vicious" expletive when she vowed in January that Mr Trump would be impeached.

"That's not somebody that loves our country," the President said.

Mr Trump also ridiculed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, like mocking the name of Mr Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and saying that former vice-president Joe Biden had "choked" in the last Democratic primary debate after Senator Kamala Harris of California challenged him on the issue of busing.

Depicting the 2020 Democrats as a hapless and left-wing lot, Mr Trump delivered what may have been his core pitch: "Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country. A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream - frankly, the destruction of our country."

Mr Trump also boasted about an afternoon vote in the House on a resolution to impeach him that had been introduced by Texas Democrat Al Green. The measure, opposed by House Democratic leaders wary of a potential backlash, failed 332-95.

"We just received an overwhelming vote against impeachment, and that is the end of it," Mr Trump said after his arrival to the rally. "Let the Democrats now go back to work."

The vote did not preclude the possibility of future impeachment action.

Mr Trump first announced the rally shortly after House Democrats set Wednesday (July 24) as the date for former special counsel Robert Mueller to testify about his report on Russian election interference. That was widely seen as an effort by the President to counterprogramme that testimony, which has since been delayed.

During his speech on Wednesday, he only briefly mentioned the investigation, denouncing it as "a hoax", and never mentioned Mr Mueller.

Mr Trump carried North Carolina in 2016 with 49.8 per cent of the vote to Mrs Hillary Clinton's 46.2 per cent. The state also voted Republican, for Mr Mitt Romney, in 2012, after Mr Barack Obama won it narrowly in 2008.

In his remarks before leaving Washington, the president responded to a question about Ms Omar, who has faced scrutiny for filing tax records with her first husband while legally married to her second.

An investigation of public records and state documents by the Minnesota Star Tribune last month could not substantiate a claim circulated online - and which Ms Omar has denied - that her first husband was her brother, whom she allegedly married for immigration benefits.

Mr Trump accepted the opportunity to weigh in on the subject.

"There's a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother," the President said, stating as fact something that is unproved.

"I know nothing about it," he said, adding that: "I'm sure that somebody would be looking at that."

Ms Omar, for one, stood firm in the face of the vitriol the President and his supporters had directed at her.

Shortly after Mr Trump's rally ended, she retweeted a comment by Mr Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, saying that the crowd's chant of "Send her back!" was "one of the most chilling and horrifying things I've ever seen in politics."

Above that statement, she quoted poet Maya Angelou, writing in part: "You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise."