As the United States enters the last phase of the presidential election, law and order has become an important issue for swing voters besides the shrinking economy and the Covid-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump made a strong pitch in his acceptance speech on Thursday, saying he alone can keep America safe from violence and arson and that “no one will be safe” if his Democratic challenger Joe Biden became president.
Although Biden has condemned the violence, he and his running mate Kamala Harris have defended the people’s right to peaceful protest while calling for police reform. But their pivot might have been late and their condemnation of unrest not loud enough. They are now on the defensive. Whether concerns about law and order can be superimposed on the 180,000 deaths from the pandemic remains to be seen but Republican strategists clearly think they have found a hole in Biden’s armour.
The Republican National Convention was the latest stage for painting a dark, dystopian future in a Biden presidency where left-wing mobs would run free, looting and destroying property. Trump capped four days of extreme rhetoric, calling Biden “a Trojan horse for socialism” who would defund the police and destroy American suburban life.
The message was aimed directly at the heart of white suburban voters, especially women who voted for Trump in 2016 but are shifting away, according to polls. One way to bring them back is to scare them that their manicured lawns and safe homes will no longer be safe given the current turmoil in many Democrat-run cities.
Protests against police brutality have gripped several major cities since the killing of George Floyd, an African American, at the hands of a white policeman in May. Floyd’s death has led to a kind of reckoning with racism, especially for white people, and partial acknowledgement that things are really wrong at the core.
Last week, police shot another unarmed African American Jacob Blake seven times in his back in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in front of his kids for reasons impossible to fathom or rationalize, which led to another round of violent demonstrations and mayhem. But it is also true that bad actors have infiltrated the largely peaceful “Black Lives Matter” protests and indulged in arson and looting in plain sight in Portland, New York and other cities.
Republicans see the unrest as an opening and they are exploiting it in full measure. Kellyanne Conway, a loyal interpreter of Trump’s politics, actually said it plainly last week when she told Fox News: “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”
Democrats know they are vulnerable on the issue and they are trying to make a comeback. Biden reminded voters that the unrest was happening in “Donald Trump’s America,” adding that he condemned “violence in any form.” The question is whether Biden can strike the right balance between condemning the violence while supporting the right to protest. It is worried suburban white voters on the one hand and African American voters fighting for racial justice on the other. Loss of either could mean defeat.
Point to note is that the Democratic National Convention largely focused on Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic with powerful testimonials from everyday people who lost family and friends. The emphasis was on the administration’s dysfunctional response and not on the law and order situation. The Biden campaign clearly considers the pandemic and the resultant economic downturn to be the defining issues this election. But the law and order issue is creeping up the ladder.
Swing voters who until a few weeks ago were abandoning Trump because of his largely cavalier attitude towards the race question in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing now seem more concerned about looting and arson resulting from the protests. Trump’s chances improve with these voters if the violence continues.
Trump is considered better to handle crime while Biden is considered better to unify and heal the country. In battleground states – where this election will be won or lost – the gap between Trump and Biden is narrower than in other parts of the country.
Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker and a diehard Democrat who predicted a Trump victory in 2016, issued a warning on Facebook this week. He said, “enthusiasm for Trump was off the charts” in crucial states which Biden was ignoring at his own peril. “Don’t leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote.”
Polls, such as they are, partially bear this out. A recent CNN national poll showed the gap between Biden and Trump narrowing. In June, Biden led by 14 points but the lead shrunk to four points in August. The shift was mainly among men while “independents” were more evenly split. Minds can change between now and voting day on 3 Nov, but any uncertainty could be a plus for Trump.
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Seema Sirohi is a columnist based in Washington DC. She writes on US foreign policy in relation to South Asia. Seema has worked with several ...
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