Welby weighs in behind critics of Trump
By Ben Riley-smith Us editor
THE Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday joined US religious leaders in criticising Donald Trump after protesters outside the White House were teargassed, creating space for a presidential photo opportunity in front of a church.
The Most Rev Justin Welby shared a tweet posted by Michael Curry, the American bishop who spoke at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding, accusing Mr Trump of exploiting Christianity for political reasons.
Mr Curry wrote that Mr Trump “used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes”, later saying the move “did nothing to help us or to heal us”.
At least one priest handing out water had been affected by the tear gas. Archbishop Welby shared Mr Curry’s comments on Twitter, writing: “I thank God for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s leadership and for all in the US who are striving for racial justice and reconciliation.” The decision by the spiritual leader of the Church of England to speak out about his concerns reflects the wave of outrage in US religious and political circles over the scenes in Washington DC on the seventh night of nationwide anti-racism protests.
Hundreds of demonstrators protesting peacefully scrambled back on Monday night as police – some with shields, others on horseback – suddenly advanced, firing tear gas and letting off flash grenades.
Minutes later Mr Trump walked through the space cleared and held a bible outside a church. Earlier he had warned he would deploy the military unless the unrest stopped.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The violence is clearly very alarming. People must be allowed to protest peacefully.”
Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, said: “Anyone that’s watched those distressing pictures in relation to George Floyd or indeed the wider protest and violence across America, we all want to see America come together, not tear itself apart.”
‘I thank God for Michael Curry’s leadership, and for all in the US who are striving for racial justice’
When he ran for president in 2016, Donald Trump was routinely compared to Richard Nixon: both men promised to restore “law and order”. Nixon won the presidency in 1968 in a familiar context of protests and riots in major cities – and he claimed to speak for a “silent majority” unrepresented by the Democrats or the media. So, comes the question, if Trump follows a Nixon strategy, will he win in November? Perhaps. But there are some major differences.
The most obvious is that Nixon was running as an outsider whereas Trump is the incumbent, and Trump will be blamed for the condition of his country even if a lot of it isn’t his fault. More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and the unemployment rate is about 15 per cent (it was about 3 per cent in 1968). Moreover, Trump might see himself as a law-and-order candidate, but many voters regard him as a source of disorder. His rhetoric seems to incite anger and he delights in picking fights.
Nixon, on the other hand, certainly knew how to bear a grudge and was hated by a thick slice of liberal opinion, but the so-called “New Nixon” of 1968 actually presented himself as a moderate. The major complaint wasn’t that he said too much, like Trump, but that he barely said anything at all; his rhetoric was tightly controlled and his grin fixed.
The Democrats were split by the Vietnam War; Nixon pitched himself as a midway choice between chaos on the Left and extremism on the Right, the latter represented by George C Wallace, an ex-governor from Alabama, running on a third-party ticket.
If Trump is like anyone in 1968, it’s Wallace: the southerner promised to back the cops 100 per cent and joked that if any anarchist lay in front of his presidential limousine, he would keep on driving. Wallace won 13 per cent of the vote. Nixon’s base of support was not the racist, white working-class, let alone gun-toting militiamen, but was generally thought to be a housewife in Dayton, Ohio – a middle-class suburbanite, aspirational and probably with a solid education. These are the sorts of people now leaving the Republican Party because they feel that, under Trump, it has moved so far to the Right.
The voters and their views have changed since the Sixties. America has become a far more diverse nation at the same time as social and racial attitudes have evolved. Today, for instance, most Americans do not automatically back the police when a citizen dies at their hands, thanks in part to the proliferation of cameras, which turns conjecture into hard fact. Trump himself has called the death of George Floyd “terrible” and pressed for a federal investigation. The president’s view, however, is that this killing has been exploited by far-left activists, and that local agencies are too wet to do anything about it.
One senses that the longer these riots go on, the more Trump’s message will resonate. Even voters sympathetic to the cause of the protesters may recoil as they see homes and businesses torn apart. Most of these riots are taking place in Democrat controlled cities in Democrat states, and the impotence of local police forces – and the inability of liberals to appeal to people’s higher natures – is startling. The problem the Democrats face is similar to in 1968: how do they balance their liberal idealism with keeping order, especially when rioters don’t respond to dialogue?
It doesn’t help that, just when they could use some Kennedy-esque generational leadership, they have nominated a relic from the past, Joe Biden. Trump’s strongest card, as in 2016, is his opponent.
Nixon was running as an outsider whereas Trump is the incumbent and will be blamed for the condition of the country