Trump updates ‘American carnage’ message for the campaign trail
WASHINGTON >> With his support falling even among Republicans as the coronavirus makes a frightening resurgence across the country, President Donald Trump used a weekend dedicated to patriotism to signal that he will spend the final four months of his reelection effort digging deeper into a culture divide, creating an enemy for his supporters in what he branded the “new far-left fascism.”
Standing in front of Mount Rushmore on Friday night, participating in an official presidential event funded by taxpayers, Trump promoted a version of the “American carnage” vision for the country that he laid out during his inaugural address — updated to include an ominous depiction of the recent protests over racial justice. Trump said the goal of protesters who want to topple monuments is “to end America.”
He was expected to follow up with a second Independence Day address Saturday from the South Lawn of the White House, from where he could view a military flyover and a large fireworks display on the National Mall. Trump’s administration pushed for the celebration, despite the warnings of local officials that it was unsafe to bring people together in large crowds.
His morbid remarks at Rushmore also were a concession to his political standing as he nears the end of his first term in office: trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in national and battleground polls; lacking a booming economy or positive message to campaign on as he tries to assign blame elsewhere for the spread of the coronavirus; and leaning on culture wars instead to buoy his base of white supporters.
Serious business
Sticking closely to the remarks on his teleprompter, with none of the joking and sarcastic asides that pepper his rally remarks, Trump delivered his speech in a grim monotone that he often employs when reading from a script.
Campaign officials have repeatedly said they expect backlash against the progressive “cancel culture” movement to help Trump’s standing with suburban female voters frightened by images of chaos in city streets.
That backlash has yet to reveal itself in polls. A recent Pew survey found that just 19% of Republicans said they were satisfied with “the way things are going,” down from 55% of Republican respondents in a previous version of the same poll.
Central to Trump’s approach is a belief he and some of his advisers share that voters are misleading pollsters about their support for the nationwide protests, several allies said. Trump has rejected suggestions from some aides who have urged him to do more to address racism in America, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in the custody of police officers in Minneapolis.
Instead, he has intensified his criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. In a post this past week on Twitter, he called the words Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate” as he criticized plans by the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, to paint the phrase on Fifth Avenue outside Trump Tower.
But as he stokes the fears of white voters, something that he has capitalized on in the past, Trump is campaigning in much different circumstances: as an incumbent president, he will be judged more on his record than his rhetoric.
The searing tone he has adopted is in large part aimed at consolidating support within his own party. Private Republican polling indicates the president is slipping in red states, in large part because conservative-leaning voters are unsettled.
“Trump needs — or thinks he needs — fear of ‘the other’ to motivate his base and create enthusiasm,” said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster. “Right now, people are fearful of COVID-19, but that is inconvenient for Trump, so he is trying to kick up fear about something he thinks will benefit his reelection: angry mobs of leftists tearing down American history.”
Matthews noted that his rhetoric does little to more than solidify the voters who were already likely to return to his corner. “He has no interest at all in expanding his base or even pulling back in those who have departed,” she said.
Pick a side
Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said that past presidents have typically sought to diffuse cultural battles, “giving people this amorphous kind of middle where they can continue to live.” Trump, however, is unlike any of his predecessors.
“Donald Trump does not give you that choice — you are either with him or against him,” said Murray, whose latest survey this past week showed Biden leading 53% to 41%. “He is forcing people to take sides. And when they take sides, more of them are moving to the other side.”
In Biden, Trump also faces a centrist opponent who is not easily branded as a radical liberal but rather one who is seen as a palatable alternative to some older voters and Republicans in a way that Hillary Clinton was not.
Biden, for instance, has said he does not support defunding the police and has made careful distinctions between tearing down monuments to the country’s Founding Fathers and those commemorating Confederate leaders.
The question for Trump and his political advisers is whether branding Biden as a puppet of far-left extremists will work.
In a statement issued Saturday in response to Trump’s speech, Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesman, said: “Joe Biden is running on the opposite values — to win this battle for the soul of our nation, bring the American people together and rebuild the middle class stronger than ever before, bringing everyone along.”
In some ways, the divisive place that Trump has landed on Independence Day is where he has always felt most comfortable campaigning.
“He’s totally opportunistic,” said William Kristol, the conservative writer and prominent “Never Trump” Republican.
He noted that Trump had never weighed in on the immigration debate before he made building a wall along the Mexican border the signature issue of his 2016 presidential campaign because he saw that it worked.
“If you don’t care about damaging the country and abandoned normal guardrails of presidential discourse,” Kristol said, “you just keep trying things and hope something sticks.”