Is Trump’s presidency now in a vicious downward spiral?
This is it, said Thomas Wright in The
Atlantic. We’ve finally arrived at the “Götterdämmerung” of the Trump presidency, the long-feared moment when it all unravels. For three years, Donald Trump more or less “muddled through”, with the help of a buoyant economy. But the advent of the Covid19 pandemic followed by the sharp economic downturn, and now the wave of civil unrest provoked by the police killing of George Floyd, has tipped his presidency into a “vicious downward spiral”. We don’t expect our leaders to solve every crisis, said Matt Bai in The Washington Post, but we do expect them to at least provide a reassuring voice of calm. Instead, during the riots in Washington, Trump was both angry and ineffectual. He issued nonsensical tweets such as “LAW & ORDER!” (“Was he talking about policy or watching late-night reruns? We’ll never know”). Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters so he could hold a photo op outside a church waving a Bible. He even managed to say that last week’s better employment figures meant that Floyd would be “looking down”, saying that this was “a great day”.
Could Trump yet find a way out of his troubles to win November’s election? “Only an idiot would bet against [him],” said Matthew Continetti in National Review. He has beaten the odds before and he is facing a weak opponent in the “uninspiring”, gaffe-prone Joe Biden. Still, the Republicans must be worried. The coronavirus has ruined the economy, Trump’s “signature issue”. “Not since 1940 has a president been re-elected with a double-digit unemployment rate”, and joblessness is now 15% and heading into the 20s.
Another huge obstacle stands in the way of Trump’s re-election, said Juan Williams in The New York Times: black voters. One of the reasons Trump won in 2016 is that, while white turnout went up, the black turnout rate fell for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election. But black voters will return in force in November and likely play a decisive role in crucial swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan. For black Americans, this is now “personal”: more than 80% of them say Trump is a racist. The Republicans may be hoping that the recent violence provokes a flood of support from frightened suburban white voters, nullifying the black vote, but that’s unlikely. The graphic footage of Floyd’s killing has opened their eyes to injustice. Make no mistake: black voters hold the power in 2020. “They have the chance to lead the nation to recovery.”