A version of this was published in the Winter Park Times, 9/4/ 20
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/the-president-is-playing-his-trump-card-fear/
Updated August 29-31, 2020. You really think a President Trump's second term would be any different, that safety will break out in your cities and neighborhoods? Joe Biden phrased a parallel question in a forceful address August 31: "Do you feel safer today with Trump?" Protests, peaceful and violent,. racially rooted, are the most frequent and widespread in fifty years and they have taken place during the President's three and a half years in the Oval Office. ..Do you really think that more of Trump's same actions and words in the next four years will make you feel safer? That is the definition of insanity: doing the same over and over again and expecting something different
A strong leader like Trump is what is needed to bring order, coo his admiring fans. Leadership to do what? Upholding the law? It is hard to uphold the law when the law enforcer supports the lawless. With his support of long gun-toting militias and right-wing extremists, calling these vigilantes patriots, he has taken the side of the advocates and practitioners of lawlessness violence. Refusing to condemn police shooting black suspects in the back or treating a white suspect of killing to people differently is giving law enforcement a permission slip to carry on with the kind of racial bias that sparked protests in the first place. Trump attempted to use the active military for his political purpose and inserted militaristic federal agents uninvited into conflicts. Both strategies failed, since the active military refused to participate in domestic politics and the faux military of "federal agents" just provoked more violence and inspired larger gatherings of angry protestors. The federal agent fiasco made Portland look like the Chinese communist crackdown on Hong Kong's advocates for democracy. The outrage that resulted forced him to withdraw "his troops".
Trump has the gall to say he will fix the violence to which he contributed. Trump's "fix" is doing more of the same that made violence worse.. Trump's own ad now running is self- damning. To illustrate what the streets would be like if Joe Biden were elected, he shows clips of the violence that occurred this summer under his watch.
Trump is playing his trump card. It is fear. and he has made no attempt to promote peace because fear is Trump's best political weapon,. Instead of bringing peace. he believes the chaos and violence benefit his political power, to get more of it, win in November, and to keep himself in power for the next four years if not beyond... Why should he want to soothe the waters of hate? Order is not his goal. Fear and chaos benefit him. as even his advisor Kellyanne Conway recently admitted. The more chaos and violence there is making it more possible to harness fear as a political tool. Ginning up fear has another benefit to Trump as well. It helps voters forget Trump's failures in combatting COVID, his incompetence, his poor judgment, and his lack of caring about life and suffering if it hurts him politically. It is a diversion from the pain the middle class is feeling and his failure to address the stress of inadequate health care, poverty level wage scales, the safety of their family and their kids from unhinged shooters and COVID infection, and, surviving, and catching up with mortgages and rents after depression level unemployment. It is fear and continuing conflict he offers us instead of a plan to deal with any of these problems. The RNC did not even bother to present a 2020 platform and voted to support Trump to do whatever he wanted to do. They gave him a blank check to carry on.
In the wake of Portland and Kenosha, Biden in no uncertain terms condemned "violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right...As a country, we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment protest,".... "It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight. What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society and using the politics of fear to whip up his supporters?" . At the Republican convention, you heard speakers claim Democrats would defund police. That is a flat out lie. Joe Biden was the first Democratic candidate to decry the term "defund police" and in his platform, he adds more police. He does urge police reform, fairness in the justice system, and giving more support to social workers and mental health, and negotiations, sitting down with the conflicting factions. He also supports the arrest and prosecution of the violent actors, those committing arson and destruction. Those are not protests, he said, they are lawless acts that should be prosecuted. He has a far better chance of bringing an end to the civil unrest than a race-baiting, violence cheering Trump who is using the promotion of chaos, violence, fear, and loathing he sees as a way to gain and keep power.
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Would this exploitation of white fear end if he is elected for a second term? Trump is an admirer of dictators He has no allegiance to democracy. Voters are to be feared, manipulated, and suppressed in his and the world of autocrats. Like them, he even opined openly would like to be president for life. That, I am sure, is not the kind of "strong leader" even my Trump supporter friends want., Careful what you wish. Spinning fear of chaos and violence is also a powerful tool for continuing in power, yet his techniques to control it have caused more fear and violence. Worrying us should also be in.the second term of Trump will be out of control. Neither law or the Constitution constrained him much yet, as he tramples both and claim he can do whatever he wants while he is in office. If he wins a second term, he would be unchained from worrying about voter approval since he is term-limited. ,. The Republican National Convention passed a resolution to support whatever Trump wanted to do. He has been given a blank check by his party.
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