Trump’s Strategy

Nearly 100 U.S. cities have experienced violent race riots and disturbances due to the protests over the death of an African American man, George Floyd, following his arrest by four white police officers in Minneapolis. In many of these cities, the peaceful protests have turned into acts of looting and vandalism, despite imposed curfews. In Washington, the protests arrived at the gates of the White House, and, last Friday, Donald Trump was moved to an underground bunker, where he remained for an hour.

The president is facing racial unrest of a kind that has not been seen in decades, a pandemic that has already killed more than 100,000 Americans and an economic crisis that has left 40 million people unemployed. Trump’s reelection in November will depend directly on his response to these three dramatic crises.

The riots bolster his “law and order” policy and relegate the deaths caused by the coronavirus to the sidelines.

The U.S. is going through a critical moment; the country is ablaze in every direction. Trump’s reaction so far has been to accuse the protesters of being “looters and anarchists,” criticize journalists − again −, threaten to deploy the military and announce that he will declare Antifa, an anti-fascist protest movement, a terrorist group. No directive, presidential order, or national address to calm the mood. Trump is taking advantage of the opportunity to present himself as the president and candidate of order and authority. He is more at home playing this role than trying to explain to the country why 100,000 of its citizens have died from the coronavirus, which he downplayed.

Trump is caught up in the perfect storm but does not seem to be uncomfortable in it. In a videoconference yesterday, he accused Democratic governors of weakness and demanded that they take a harder line and make more arrests, employing a strategy with the purpose of showing that Republicans apply the Nixonian doctrine of “law and order.” He knows that the more images of burning businesses there are on TV, the better for him because this means less attention on COVID-19, and if the white, conservative, rural voter arrives scared at the ballot box on Nov. 3, his chances of winning reelection will be much greater. The president has condemned Floyd’s death and promised an investigation into it, but the riots strengthen his message that the fault lies with the radical left and the Democrats’ weakness.

We do not know if 2020 will end up being an annus horribilis for Trump, but his presidency has been scarred this year by the health, economic and social crises. Some analysts talk of the system’s inability to change and fight inequality, but, for the time being, it seems that the priority is not to address the deep roots of the problem but look for people to blame.

And this is something at which Trump and the Republicans are experts. The message is simple: The fault lies with the radical left, the Democrats and the press. Trumpism thrives on conflict and victimizing a section of the white population that ends up being his fishing ground for votes.

The wave of violence has caught the political class, who were immersed in an electoral campaign that has now been disrupted by the pandemic, off guard. The Democratic Party started off supporting the protesters but later condemned the violence and looting. Its candidate, Joe Biden, is leading in the polls by between 5 and 10 points, but this means nothing, since the election is decided by just a few states, and the Democrats will have to propose more than words of reconciliation if they want the African American protesters to turn out and vote for them in November.

The polarization that the United States was already experiencing will increase following this wave of violence. The social fracture is growing, and Trump is more comfortable playing at confrontation than offering unity. He knew how to capitalize on social tensions in 2016, but, at that time, the country was not mourning the deaths of 100,000 people because of a virus, nor were there 40 million people out of work.