Is Biden betting Trump’s ‘law and order’ will backfire?
WASHINGTON – The day after President Donald Trump declared himself “your president of law and order,” Democratic rival Joe Biden began a speech by reciting the final words of George Floyd, whose death has sparked nationwide protests.
“I can’t breathe,” Biden said last week in Philadelphia as he quoted Floyd, an African American man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis held a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. “I can’t breathe.”
As the White House race was again upended – first by a pandemic and now by the largest display of public demonstrations in a half-century – Trump’s get-tough response opened the door for the former vice president to present a contrast. It’s one the Biden campaign embraced.
Yet it’s a tightrope for Biden politically. Not only has he exposed himself to attacks from Trump as soft amid civil unrest and violence, but many young African American activists at the center of the Floyd protests still haven’t warmed up to his candidacy.
On Friday, Biden clinched the Democratic presidential nomination by passing the 1,991-delegate threshold needed to be the party’s nominee.
As he did four years ago, Trump invoked “law and order” language from Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential run, which came during similar national turbulence.
The Biden campaign said the president’s decision to forego a national address calling for healing highlighted a lack of leadership. The campaign has also accused Trump of botching the response to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 110,000 – a characterization the president rejects.
“It’s obvious that these two individuals are trying to have very different conversations with voters,” said Amy Dacey, former CEO of the Democratic National Committee who is now executive director at American University’s Sine Institute of Policy and Politics. She said the protests have further turned the race into a “question of which leadership style people want moving forward.”
After Trump threatened to quell the riots with U.S. military force, Biden leaned into what his campaign perceives as one of the former vice president’s best qualities – empathy – and pushed for police reforms that Trump has stayed away from following the death of Floyd.
In addition to the Philadelphia speech, Biden held a Zoom call with
Democratic mayors and visited a gathering at a predominantly black church in Wilmington, Delaware. The campaign planned events where Biden was listening, not just talking.
“Like many of you, I know what it’s like to grieve. I know what it feels like to feel like you can’t go on,” Biden said, decrying widespread “suffering” in the U.S. right now and bringing up the fiveyear anniversary of the death of his son, Beau, who had battled brain cancer.
“The pain is raw. The pain is real. A president of the United States must be part of the solution, not the problem. But our president today is part of the problem.”
But there are risks with Biden embracing the sentiment of protesters. Trump on Thursday tried to tie Democrats and Biden to activists’ calls to “defund police.” He tweeted, “Remember that when you don’t want crime.”
Although Biden has condemned the violence and looting, senior Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson suggested the Democratic candidate had made a “crass political calculation” that the unrest would help his campaign.
“Joe Biden’s campaign made it clear that they stand with the rioters, the people burning businesses in minority communities and causing mayhem, by donating to post bail for those arrested,” she said.
For the Biden campaign, the goal is to connect the president’s response to racism and inequality to the pandemic and economic suffering, arguing it’s another crisis that Trump can’t handle.
“He is incapable of confronting the systemic racism and injustice that has plagued our country for generations, so he changes the subject with a new catchphrase,” said Biden campaign national press secretary T.J. Ducklo.
Brad Todd, Republican strategist and founding partner of the media consultant firm OnMessage Inc., said Biden is “trying to walk a line” of supporting the protests but not supporting the riots.
“The voice he will probably need to channel on that is George Floyd’s brother or the mayor of Atlanta,” he said, referring to Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who spoke strongly against vandalism that spilled from protests in her city.
“That’s the challenge for him,” said Todd. He said the Biden campaign was disciplined by keeping Biden off the campaign trail amid the coronavirus because there was no benefit to him.
Todd said “the sweet spot” for most Americans, especially people in the suburbs, is protecting the right to protest while also preserving order. “I think that’s probably the sweet spot that anybody running for president should aim for.”
Protests seeking justice for Floyd broke out just days after Biden made a widely criticized gaffe speaking to African American voters.
In an interview with black radio host Charlamagne tha God, Biden said “you ain’t black” if you’re struggling to decide whether to back him or Trump. The comment prompted a backlash among many black voters, whose overwhelming support was the biggest factor in turning around Biden’s campaign in the Democratic primary. He’s now relying on them to turn out in higher numbers than 2016 to beat Trump.
The Trump campaign seized on the remarks. Biden, who already faced scrutiny from progressive black voters for helping pass the 1994 crime bill, quickly apologized.
As for energizing black voters to turn out for Biden in high numbers, “speaking at a church and having a photo op with some protesters is not enough,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University and director of the school’s James Weldon Johnson Institute, which focuses on movements for civil and human rights. She added: “This has to be the start of a conversation and it shouldn’t be the end of the conversation.”
Some African American protesters gathered at Lafayette Park near the White House last week said they want to see more from Biden, but they made it clear they don’t support Trump. The protesters are overwhelmingly young and liberal – demographics Biden struggled with in the Democratic primary.
Cassandra Dalmida, 19, of Washington, D.C., said she’s disappointed in Trump’s response to the protests, calling it “disrespectful.” Dalmida, a firsttime voter, said she appreciated Biden’s response to Trump’s position on the protests.
Still, she said she’s unsure if she will vote for Biden.