I've seen a lot of pundits say that Trump is going to benefit from the riots. That white people will run to his arms on a law and order platform like they did for Nixon and this is 1968. I don't buy it. I think the opposite is likely to happen instead.
Consider the following: when the 1968 riots occurred, Nixon benefited because he was able to portray himself as the calm and steady hand who could right the ship and return America to order. He did this by being a known political quantity, having been vice president already, and having run for president previously. Furthermore, the riots were just one of many issues the public had with the LBJ administration, with Vietnam becoming ever more of a quagmire. Problems abroad, problems at home, and a calm, old politician who seemed steady and competent.
Trump is neither steady, nor competent, and he is the incumbent, not the challenger. Furthermore, does anyone, anyone at all, actually trust Trump to deescalate the situation? Of course not. Trump is wholly uncapable of doing the things presidents are expected to do.
There are a number of other issues at play here. Trump ran for president by speaking of American decline and American carnage; he now has both. 'Make America Great Again' he said, and now America has problems abroad, plague at home, and riots in the streets. People already disagreed with his handling of the coronavirus; it seems unlikely that they will go to him thinking he totally grasps how law and order works.
We also need to consider the people he's trying to reassure. The soccer-moms of 9/11 didn't think their kids were safe with the virus, and didn't think their parents were safe either. The riots upset them, but would Trump's method of solving the problem; e.g. sending in the troops to shoot at Americans; make them feel any safer? Of course not.
There's also the fact that this is not the first time Trump has faced unrest. He is also widely seen, even by Republicans, as fomenting unrest himself. He has, continually, sided with men who wear firearms and play act insurgents. Now he broadcasts that he'd like to turn America into a warzone so that he seems in control. Will the voters he's trying to court like this?
Finally, it is important to note that the political alignments in our country are not the same now as they were in 1968. The people who pundits claim will go to trump, educated white people, are now firmly drifting towards Democrats due to their own liberalization on many issues. Furthermore, Republicans in 1968 were able to successfully paint Democrats as being the party of radicals, the one that wanted things like socialism and equal rights. Today, in 2020, the Democrats are the big tent party, and Republicans are animated by one thing and one thing only: Trump.
Furthermore, Trump only knows how to do one thing, which is escalate. He is incapable of bringing down the temperature and making people feel safe. Trump cannot reassure anyone the way Nixon did. Trump is an arsonist playing firefighter, and even when times were peaceful has spent his time trying to incite culture war fights. That's the guy people are going to run to as a known quantity for saving America? Over Joe Biden? Really?
And what exactly is Trump's endgame of escalation? Sending in the national guard or the military to do... what? Gun down American protesters like it's Kent State on a massively larger scale? I can't imagine that outcome is going to make people feel safer.
The fact is, Trump can't run as a law and order candidate because he's not a law and order person. Law and order is boring, rigid, inflexible. Trump is silly putty; he'll become whatever he feels like, and that's usually something that unnerves everyone watching him.
I don't believe that the people who didn't like Trump already are going to feel safer with Trump still in office. I think it's far more likely Trump will continue to threaten violence and make the people he would supposedly win over run further away.
thebulwark |
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