Tim Stanley:

While many believe Trump lit the fire, the Democrats don’t seem to be trying to put it out

The presidential campaign hits the road this week and both candidates are talking about America, Jesus and law and order. Same words; different meanings.

There’s an assumption that the riots in Wisconsin play to Donald Trump’s advantage because he stands for strength. I’m not so sure. Many voters feel that the riots started under him and that his presidency is “disorderly” because he thrives on conflict. Most importantly, the riots began as protests that were triggered by a genuine injustice: Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot by the police seven times in the back and left paralysed from the waist down. He was shackled to his hospital bed. The lesson liberals take from Wisconsin is that you cannot have order without also having justice, and Trump, they feel, has no interest in that.

There’s a lot of truth in this argument. There’s also a dash of naivety. Last week, a CNN journalist reported on “fiery but mostly peaceful” demonstrations in Wisconsin; it “wasn’t until nightfall”, he said, “that things began to get a little bit more contentious”. He was standing in front of burnt-out cars and a building engulfed in flames.

Neither are all the (mostly white) activists well informed. When a Republican senator was mobbed leaving the White House, a lady screamed at him: “Say her name! Say her name!” She was referring to Breonna Taylor, a woman who was shot dead by police when they broke into Taylor’s apartment in a “no-knock” raid. The Senator’s name was Rand Paul and he sponsored a bill to ban noknock raids. It was even called the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act.

It’s stupid. It’s also scary. Protestors erected a guillotine outside the house of billionaire Jeff Bezos. A Chicago teachers’ union branch tweeted: “We are completely frightened by, completely impressed by and completely in support of wherever this is headed.” Teachers said that.

It captures the Left’s almost innocent take on events spiralling beyond its control or understanding. Speaking to National Public Radio, author Vicky Osterweil described looting as an assault on white supremacy and inequality. “It gets people what they need for free immediately ... it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure. It helps them imagine a world that could be.”

This is an extreme example not just of an ideology but an instinct that convinces many people that human beings are never just rotten, they always have a reason why they do what they do, that the man running out of a burning store with a microwave under his arm isn’t stealing it, he’s redistributing it.

The inability of liberals to condemn rioting with conviction, the need constantly to assert that “most of the protests are peaceful”, leads many to the conclusion that Trump might have lit the fire, but the Democrats will tolerate it. Riots tend to occur in Democrat-controlled cities. If even the most liberal parts of America have failed to realise racial justice, why assume that Biden can do so if elected president? On the other hand, do you believe that if Trump wins on November 3, the rioters will accept the election result and go home?

Trump supporters have started 

saying that Biden is a Catholic in name only, because he has dropped whatever opposition he used to have to abortion. To many Americans, the accusation sounds ridiculous: Biden goes to church, says the rosary and is essentially a very nice man. Is all that invalidated because he breaks with the Church on one issue?

By contrast, Trump is solid as a rock on abortion (he’s against it) but also pro-death penalty, pro-torture, has cut the number of refugees, been married multiple times and is entirely without humility. Are all his sins wiped clean by being a friend of the unborn?

Now, all rights start with the right to life and if you believe that abortion involves the taking of life then Biden can attend as many church picnics as he likes but he can’t run away from this overwhelming error. That’s what I think; it’s what politically conservative Catholics think. But America is split down the middle and about half of Catholics think abortion should be legal; if Biden is not a real Catholic, neither are they. And, because he’s 77, I’d wager he’s more theologically orthodox than most. A remarkable survey found that just 31 per cent of US Catholics believe in transubstantiation, which is central to our faith.

Biden’s Catholicism is rather an indictment of division within the Church. The Democrat convention was addressed by a nun in a natty cardigan who once said that abortion was “beyond my pay grade”. The Republicans were addressed by a nun in a habit who said: “I’m not just pro-life. I’m pro-eternal life.” Both sisters are united by the same communion, but their difference in language and priorities encourages the laity to think certain beliefs are up for negotiation when they are not.

I suspect most Catholics are in name only, including me: I frequently break the rules. But I won’t lie to myself or to others about what the rules are. Nor should anyone running for president.