The civil unrest unfolding in cities across the country is starting to rival the coronavirus as a source of voter concern, a possibility that could redound to President Trump’s benefit.
Both campaigns are behaving as if they sense such a shift. A recent Pew poll found violent crime suddenly a top five issue, just a few points behind the coronavirus. CNN’s Don Lemon commented last week that the violence was hurting Democrats.
Support for Black Lives Matter has dropped significantly in some polls. Marquette Law School found 61% to 38% backing in mid-June yet a 48% to 48% split in early August. There were also viral videos of a couple being stalked by protesters in Washington, D.C., and Rand Paul, a criminal justice reform proponent who introduced a bill banning no-knock warrants named after police shooting victim Breonna Taylor, and his wife being attacked.
As the protests begin to spiral out of control in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, Democrats are suddenly finding themselves on the defensive. Presidential nominee Joe Biden has begun to try to get out in front of the issue, with fresh condemnations of the rioting and looting following relative silence at his party’s nominating convention. He is blaming the unrest on Trump’s divisiveness.
“This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can’t stop the violence — because for years he has fomented it,” Biden said in a Pittsburgh speech condemning the violence on Monday. “He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is. Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?”
The Republican counterargument is that the violence has mainly been in Democratic-run cities and the demonstrators are overwhelmingly left wing, though there have been some clashes between Trump supporters and protesters. A young man arrested for shooting two protesters in Kenosha has been characterized as a Trump supporter in some media reports.
Democrats have criticized the federal response in Portland, where the Department of Homeland Security intervened to protect a courthouse, and argued Trump is suppressing peaceful protests. Some liberals have contended property damage doesn’t really constitute violence and that insurance will compensate business owners whose buildings have been torched or pelted with projectiles hurled through windows.
“Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness, and of the police,” In Defense of Looting author Vicky Osterweil said in an interview with NPR. “It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also, it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that’s a part of it that doesn’t really get talked about — that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.” She added, “It’s just money. It’s just property. It’s not actually hurting any people.”
The Trump campaign chided Biden for failing to condemn antifa or apologize for his staffers donating to bail funds. “These left-wing rioters are Joe Biden supporters trashing cities run by Democrats who support his candidacy,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement. “He has repeatedly given them cover by excusing their violence by calling them ‘peaceful protestors’ and accusing law enforcement of ‘stoking the fires of division.’”
“Make no mistake, if you give power to Joe Biden, the radical Left will defund police departments all across America,” Trump said in last week’s GOP convention speech. “They will pass federal legislation to reduce law enforcement nationwide. They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon.”
Trump’s numbers, already on a downward spiral due to the coronavirus, fell further after George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody. Voters told pollsters they wanted a calming, unifying voice out of the White House, generally not seen as a Trump strength. Republican strategist Frank Luntz said, at the time, Trump’s emphasis on “law and order” — he sometimes tweets out that phrase alone — rather than “public safety” was misplaced.
“I think the BLM crowd has overplayed its hand with suburban voters. They are not really agitating for racial justice,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “They are agitating for a complete overthrow of our free market capitalist system to be replaced by a socialist utopia. These voters, many of whom have comfortable lives and big homes, aren’t all that interested in being hit with loud protests and threats of violence on a continual basis.”
“I know that BLM thinks that by taking their fight to the streets of suburbia, they are helping to effectively spread their message, but my sense is that it will backfire spectacularly in the November elections for the Democrats,” Feehery added.
