Trump bets presidency on “law and order” theme

KENOSHA, Wis. — After strug­gling for much of the year to set­tle on a clear and con­cise reelec­tion mes­sage, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump appears to have found his 2020 ral­ly­ing cry.

Four years ago, it was “Build the Wall,” a sim­ple yet cod­ed mantra to white Amer­i­ca that non­white out­siders threat­ened their way of life. This week, Trump has re-cen­tered his cam­paign on anoth­er three-word phrase that car­ries a sim­i­lar racial dynam­ic: “Law and Order.”

For much of the sum­mer, the Repub­li­can pres­i­dent flirt­ed with the bumper-stick­er slo­gan cham­pi­oned by Richard Nixon and George Wal­lace in 1968. But Trump sharply increased his focus on law and order after a white police offi­cer in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin, shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, mul­ti­ple times last week as Blake’s three chil­dren ed, spark­ing protest-relat­ed violence.

The pres­i­dent toured the Mid­west­ern city on Tues­day, meet­ing with law enforce­ment offi­cials and busi­ness­es affect­ed by the protests. He large­ly ignored Blake’s family.

Trump referred to protest-relat­ed vio­lence as “domes­tic ter­ror” while decry­ing “vio­lent mobs” that demol­ished or dam­aged two dozen local businesses.

“Kenosha has been rav­aged by anti-police and anti-Amer­i­can riots,” he declared.

The president’s shift­ing mes­sage, which draws from Nixon’s half-cen­tu­ry-old polit­i­cal play­book, car­ries risks just nine weeks before Elec­tion Day.

First, it ignores the health and eco­nom­ic crises affect­ing tens of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans under Trump’s . Demo­c­rat Joe Biden has repeat­ed­ly accused Trump of sur­ren­der­ing to the pan­dem­ic, and the president’s focus on iso­lat­ed inci­dents of vio­lence amid such wide­spread suf­fer­ing threat­ens to rein­force Biden’s point. The pandemic’s death toll exceed­ed 184,000 Amer­i­cans on Tues­day with no end in sight.

Sec­ond, his­to­ry sug­gests that Trump’s strat­e­gy won’t work giv­en that any vio­lence that occurs is hap­pen­ing under his presidency.

Nixon invoked law-and-order rhetoric to win white vot­ers in 1968, but he was forced to aban­don it once he became the incum­bent, accord­ing to Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Kevin Krause. Nixon adopt­ed a new mes­sage after Repub­li­cans suf­fered deep loss­es in the 1970 midterm elec­tions when they sough to res­ur­rect law and order as a focus.

Near­ly 50 years lat­er, Trump’s GOP also suf­fered deep loss­es in the 2018 midterms after the pres­i­dent warned that a mas­sive car­a­van of Latin Amer­i­can immi­grants was try­ing to cross the south­ern bor­der — a vari­a­tion of the same mes­sage he’s embrac­ing this year. Instead of immi­grants in 2020, how­ev­er, Trump’s ped­dling notions of dan­ger­ous mobs of large­ly African Amer­i­can rioters.

“The prob­lem is if you’re the incum­bent, you rep­re­sent the law and the order,” Krause said. “An incum­bent who press­es the issue is effec­tive­ly mak­ing the case for his oppo­nent, not himself.”

Krause not­ed that Biden has already bor­rowed a page from his­to­ry to chal­lenge Trump’s strat­e­gy. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee on Mon­day used the same “are you bet­ter off?” rhetoric suc­cess­ful­ly employed by Franklin Roo­sevelt and Ronald Rea­gan when they defeat­ed incum­bent presidents.

“Does any­one believe there will be less vio­lence in Amer­i­ca if Don­ald Trump is reelect­ed?” Biden asked Mon­day in a speech in Penn­syl­va­nia. “He keeps telling us if he was pres­i­dent you would feel safe. Well, he is president.”

Trump is also apply­ing the law-and-order mantra selec­tive­ly. While he decries vio­lence, he excused his over­whelm­ing­ly white sup­port­ers who clashed with Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers last week­end in Port­land, Ore­gon, say­ing their use of paint­ball guns was a “defen­sive mech­a­nism.” And as he blast­ed trou­ble­mak­ers, he sug­gest­ed that a white 17-year-old who has been charged with killing two men dur­ing the may­hem in Kenosha act­ed in self-defense.

Still, for lack of any oth­er cohe­sive mes­sage as the 2020 elec­tion enters its final phase, Trump is going all in on law and order, which is aimed direct­ly at the same coali­tion of white, sub­ur­ban and rur­al vot­ers who fueled his White House vic­to­ry four years ago.

The states Trump’s cam­paign has tar­get­ed for expan­sion in 2020, Min­neso­ta and New Hamp­shire, are all far whiter than the nation as a whole with large shares of sub­ur­ban and rur­al pop­u­la­tions. Such vot­ers were far more sym­pa­thet­ic to Trump’s nation­al­is­tic immi­gra­tion and eco­nom­ic poli­cies four years ago, and his cam­paign believes they will be recep­tive to his law and order mes­sag­ing now.

While the nation’s atti­tudes toward racial injus­tice shift­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly after the death of George Floyd in police cus­tody in May was cap­tured on video, Trump’s team is con­vinced that months of occa­sion­al­ly vio­lent protests — and the president’s per­sis­tent high­light­ing of them — have changed the cal­cu­lus for some voters.

For months, Trump and his allies have tried to hold deep-blue cities as the cau­tion­ary tale for the nation. With Kenosha, they believe they have their proof pos­i­tive to Trump’s warn­ing to sub­ur­ban vot­ers that their towns could be next.

Recent polling sug­gests that pub­lic sup­port for the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment, which peaked after Floyd’s death, has lev­eled off.

A Mar­quette Uni­ver­si­ty Law School poll found that approval of the protests among Wis­con­sin vot­ers slipped from 61% in June to 48% in August. Favor­able views of the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment also dipped from 59% to 49% over the same peri­od, although Wis­con­sinites were still more like­ly to have a favor­able opin­ion than an unfa­vor­able one of the movement.

And vot­ers were not pleased with Trump’s han­dling of the protests: 58% dis­ap­proved and just 32% approved, Mar­quette found.

Yet Trump’s allies believe there has been a def­i­nite shift in the sub­urbs, par­tic­u­lar­ly among sub­ur­ban men.

“The sub­urbs have turned against civ­il unrest,” said Wes Ander­son, a Repub­li­can poll­ster for the Trump-affil­i­at­ed polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion Amer­i­ca First Policies.

“The Democ­rats have tout­ed for a year now, or longer, that Repub­li­cans are screwed because we don’t have an answer to sub­ur­ban women who’ve turned against us. But what we’ve seen is that we do very well with sub­ur­ban white men, and we shouldn’t be so scared of the gen­der gap,” Ander­son con­tin­ued. “Right now, the president’s advan­tage with sub­ur­ban white men is greater than deficit with sub­ur­ban white women.”

There is rea­son to be skep­ti­cal that protest-relat­ed vio­lence will con­tin­ue to be a top pri­or­i­ty for swing vot­ers through­out the fall, espe­cial­ly if the inci­dents of loot­ing and vio­lence sub­side as they have in oth­er cities over the summer.

But for now, Trump is bet­ting his polit­i­cal future on law and order.

The peo­ple of Kenosha, he said Tues­day, “want peo­ple that are going to keep them safe, where their hous­es aren’t bro­ken into, where they’re not raped and murdered.”

Trump added: “They want law and order.”

(Vis­it­ed 1 times, 1 vis­its today)



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