“Folks, it’s go time.”
Joe Biden rallied his donors this week, signaling that the general election, put on hold for the most part because of the coronavirus pandemic, is about to ignite ahead of the nominating conventions in August.
The prospect of a scorched-earth summer between the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and President Trump was on the boiler long before Memorial Day, as the pair openly vented their frustrations with one another in snippy comments to the press and online.
But any pretense of civility for the sake of national unity amid the coronavirus outbreak is set to shatter as stay-at-home orders, imposed to stop the spread of the virus, lift around the country.
Trailing in national polls and surveys of voters in crucial battleground states, Trump has escalated his attacks on Biden and a string of other targets who have found themselves in the crosshairs because they gin up his base.
MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough, a Trump friend turned foe, is among those in the firing line recently.
The president has ignored pleas to quit stoking speculation that Scarborough was responsible for the 2001 death of former congressional aide Lori Klausutis, even from her widower. Police reports suggest that Klausutis, 28, died of complications from an underlying heart condition that caused her to fall and hit her head on a desk when the TV anchor was a Florida Republican lawmaker.
Democratic political consultant Mike Ward described Trump’s behavior as being akin to a cornered animal hoping to claw his way to a second term.
“Trump will do anything, even accuse someone of murder, to take attention away from the people he’s allowed to die because of his not seeing the virus as a threat to his citizens but as a threat to his reelection,” Ward, a one-term Kentucky congressman from 1995-1997, told the Washington Examiner.
Twitter has been another one of Trump’s targets, an extension of his anti-media crusade, after the technology giant this week slapped a “get the facts” tag under a series of his tweets about California’s mail-in ballot reforms. Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the election, and the White House is drafting an executive order that would narrow social media companies’ liability protections for third-party posts.
Aside from using a fundraising and organizing advantage to push the narrative that Biden is going senile and has been soft on China, Trump has also fueled the Obamagate conspiracy theory, according to which the former administration allegedly masterminded the Russia investigation to undermine Trump’s presidency.
Despite claiming that he doesn’t want to stoop to their level as he battles “for the soul of the nation,” Biden, in turn, has increasingly not hesitated to volley back from his basement or back patio.
He stood his ground this week after he was widely mocked for wearing a mask during his first public appearance on the trail since March, linking Trump’s masculinity to the incumbent’s reticence to don face gear.
The dig at Trump’s virility was a different tact for Biden after months of slamming the White House’s equipment procurement, testing, and contact tracing strategy, all of which failed to puncture through Trump-centric coverage of COVID-19.
Departing from a norm in which candidates’ children are generally off-limits, Biden and his campaign have ripped Trump’s sons as well. Biden this month blasted both Eric Trump for insisting the virus would “magically” disappear following Election Day and Donald Trump Jr. for insinuating Biden was a pedophile. In the past, the Trump family has gone after Biden’s son Hunter for his ties to China and Ukraine, in addition to his tabloid-style personal life.
Though Biden has been spared the full brunt of a Trump onslaught because of the pandemic, former Rep. Bob Inglis, a South Carolina Republican, advised Biden to brace for summer salvos ahead of the fall fight.
“It’s not changed. Ever since he came down that escalator, it’s all been the same,” Inglis said of Trump. “The question is how Joe Biden deals with it.”
But Inglis warned that Trump was exposed to political risk too because what worked in 2016 may not in 2020. He cited data, for instance, indicating many older voters who traditionally lean toward the GOP believe not wearing a mask is inconsiderate.
“Donald Trump thinks that he can succeed by dividing us into rival teams that really dislike each other, and part of that is of course establishing the media as the enemy of the people,” he said. “He’s what I understand to be a consequentialist. Essentially, the ends justify the means.”
Inglis added, “And so, yeah — you play with fire, you might just get burned.”
