At their convention, Republicans belabored the argument of Democrats’ culpability, even complicity, in criminality in Portland, Kenosha, Seattle, and other cities. The approach of ascribing blame was infectious. Democrats have coopted it, though their thesis is obviously different: Trump is to blame.
In the wake of a serious shift in conversation, a result of the RNC’s thrust on the violence question and of commentary by big media voices such as Don Lemon and now Joe Scarborough, Democratic officials have reimagined their criticism of Trump from mid-July. When Trump ordered federal law enforcement officers to Portland, they claimed that he was escalating tensions for his own campaign, that he made things worse and on purpose. That message has been reprised in even stronger terms.
“These guys are rooting for violence,” Biden said last Thursday. “That is what it is all about.” On Sunday, Biden said in a statement, “He is recklessly encouraging violence,” speaking specifically about Trump not discouraging his supporters from engaging with rioters. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has similarly suggested that Trump is the one inciting violence.
Portland’s mayor, Democrat Ted Wheeler, has been at the center of Trump’s criticisms. In a press conference on Sunday, Wheeler said to Trump, “You’ve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history, and now, you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.”
The party can hardly be blamed for countering what has proved to be a really effective political strategy for Republicans, though Democratic officials are still in deflection mode.
As COVID-19 bloomed, desperation gave birth to a measure of momentary bipartisanship, as Democratic officials such as Govs. Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo welcomed help from Trump and his administration. They even offered him some praise, which he returned (though the courtesies fizzled out as they began attacking each other again in usual fashion). Wheeler and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown have been too blind to see that Portland’s crisis is so grave as to require a strategic change and probably federal assistance. That admission would vindicate Trump, and vindicating Trump would simply be too great a political loss.
Those considerations account for Wheeler simultaneously calling on Trump for help — “I’d appreciate that either the president support us or he stay the hell out of the way,” he said on Sunday — and denying it. “On behalf of the City of Portland: No thanks,” he wrote in a letter to Trump on Friday.
The duration of Portland’s violence has been extended over and over again because officials have directed their ire toward Washington instead of the criminality in their own streets. Democratic officials don’t want cities to burn, but they want to get at Trump more than they want to put out the flames.
