President Trump believes there’s a fork in his road to re-election, and he’s decided which way to go.
Characteristically, he’s taking the made-for-TV fork, by trying to frighten white Americans about disorder and occasional violence linked to anti-Trump and Black Lives Matter protesters and by inciting their right-wing opponents.
And he’s evading the other, far deadlier fork, by ignoring the Covid-19 pandemic, which is killing upwards of 1,000 Americans, every day.
On Monday, the number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. shot past 6 million.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracker reported that there have been 6,009,899 Covid-19 cases confirmed in the U.S. — by far the most in the world — and 183,258 Americans have died.
But Trump wants to distract the public from that by portraying American cities as under siege by lawlessness, “despite the fact that most of the demonstrations against racial injustice have been largely peaceful,” reports the Associated Press.
In an MSNBC Twitter post, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee cited a political “pivot” by the president:
In Portland OR — a hotspot in the nationwide protests and counter-protests — a man “thought to be a member of a pro-Trump group” was shot to death Saturday night, reported the Washington Post.
“In tweeting a video of the caravan on the move, Trump called the participants ‘GREAT PATRIOTS!’”
“With about nine weeks until Election Day, some of [Trump’s] advisers see an aggressive “law and order” message as the best way for the president to turn voters against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and regain the support of suburban voters, particularly women, who have abandoned him,” says the AP.
But Biden is swinging back. In a statement on Sunday, he said:
“We must not become a country at war with ourselves; a country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you; a country that vows vengeance toward one another. But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.”
Biden also delivered a speech Monday on this topic — the first of what’s expected to be a much more active campaign for the former vice president between now and Election Day.
Regardless, the pandemic rolls on, taking an ever-increasing toll of American lives and fortunes.
Some experts have projected that nearly 300,000 — roughly 1 in 1,100 Americans — will be dead by December, making it the nation’s third-largest cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.
Meanwhile, the once-robust economy withers and millions are unemployed; many of those jobs may be gone for good.
“Many employees furloughed in the spring who haven’t been brought back to work most likely won’t have a job to return to,” Daniel Sternberg of Gusto, a small-business support company, told the Wall Street Journal.
On top of that, American parents from coast to coast are struggling to decide if they’re putting their childrens’ lives at risk by sending them back to school.
Trump has portrayed himself as a “law and order” president, but his opponents — including some prominent, lifelong Republicans — say that’s ridiculous.
On. Sunday, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) told a CNN interviewer that Trump is “doing everything he can to fan the flames” of violence.
Trump will have plenty of opportunity to do so, when he visits Kenosha WI on Tuesday, despite a plea from the state’s Democratic governor to reconsider.
“I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a public letter to the president. “I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.”
Gun violence erupted in Kenosha in August, beginning with Jacob Blake, a Black man shot seven times in the back by a police officer as Blake’s three small children watched. Blake is now paralyzed from the waist down.
Then, over the weekend in Kenosha, a teenage militia member from northern Illinois allegedly shot three Black Lives Matter protesters who tried to disarm him, killing two. He’s under arrest, charged with murder.
“Shooting in the streets of a great American city is unacceptable,” Biden said in his Sunday statement. “I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.”
