Make America Safe Again – Why Trump is on course to beat Biden
No apology is offered for opening with this full quote from a recent conversation with a troubled friend, a native of Portland, Oregon. He speaks, undramatically and from the heart, of the ANTIFA issue that will dominate the American presidential election from Labor Day until November 3; the civil unrest scourging American cities that looks increasingly likely to propel Donald Trump towards a second term in the White House:
“As for Portland, I will say the violence and feckless leadership, in Portland, and Oregon in general, made us feel much happier about our move to Salt Lake City. We have been back to Portland frequently. Our daughter and her family remain there. We, and virtually everyone I know, avoid going to downtown Portland at all cost.
If you’re looking for sanity, I’m afraid it’s hard to find it these days in Portland. We have a friend who resides there and is a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is escorted to and from the Federal Courthouse each day by a large number of federal troops. She describes the environment in Portland as an active war zone and feels like the world is turning upside down.
Most of the Homeland Security personnel backed off their visible presence after the Mayor and Governor promised that the state police would help protect the federal facilities. Soon after being deployed, the state police refused to stay in the city, when they realised that the city and county authorities refused to file charges against many of the militants who had been detained.
The Portland police are so overwhelmed, many 911 calls are ignored, Many drivers ignore traffic laws with impunity. Businesses in Portland are all boarded up and have little chance for survival.
It is a truly scary situation when the authorities refuse to enforce the law and resist mob rule. Fortunately, where our daughter is now living is about eight miles from downtown and has been free of any civil unrest. Outside of all the Black Lives Matter signs all over the place, you wouldn’t notice much difference in daily activity.”
This is not a clip from a Fox News rant. It is an off the cuff, from the heart and from the ground, unhysterical report from frightened, middle America. My friend voted for Hilary in 2016. He is a friend with a record of public service, but of no overtly partisan camp; a friend I respect for his sense of common decency and tolerance; a friend who, formerly playing his part at the core of American life, now considers himself marginalised, unheard by the political system, and alarmed by the frenzied mobsters attacking his home city.
A friend who, nonetheless, cannot bring himself to vote for Donald Trump. Trump, the man, is personally too appalling for that. He may not vote at all. “Basement Biden” impresses him not one whit. But, he speaks of other like-minded friends who, because of the mayhem in which they are presently engulfed, will cast aside their political habit of generations, and consider voting for the incumbent President. Theirs is the ominous writing on Joe Biden’s wall.
That it has come to this for my friend’s friends, the Biden campaign seems determined to ignore at its peril. Just as “It’s the economy stupid” was the James Carville epithet of the 1992 Clinton election, so “It’s the dystopia, stupid” will cap the tombstone marking the end of Joe Biden’s thirty two year run for the presidency of the United States. Although, it’s likely there will be a more catchy version that some campaign geek shall surely coin.
In Biden’s acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic Convention, unconvincingly delivered in ether-land to a non-existent audience, the dystopia which threatens law and order in the USA was simply airbrushed out of the picture. Big mistake. The candidate’s unpredictable modulations between crescendos of faux rage and grandfatherly bonhomie – the “light” and “hope” bits, coupled with the now familiar involuntary palm movements to the face were, well… simply weird.
It is time to compare and contrast Biden’s and Trump’s approaches. Convention acceptance speeches do not turn elections, but they are tell-tales of which way the candidates’ campaigns are blowing.
Watching both, in full, was self-flagellation worthy of the 11th century Benedictine monk, Peter Damian. This was mortification of the flesh in 21st century form. Biden’s speech was truly dire, devoid of content, chock full of that empty rhetoric of “light” and “hope” – and, what was unbelievable in a tele-prompted set piece, full of misspeaking blunders.
Here’s a mega-blooper: “There’s never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together”. Read that again. Really? I couldn’t believe what I had just heard, so word checked it – twice. For readers who don’t believe me, listen to it here (to avoid the torture of the whole performance, this spectacular gaffe is 23 minutes 10 seconds fast-forwarded in):
Probably it was a Freudian slip, considering the former VP’s blank record. What is the Democrat team smoking to allow that to go unedited?
“Oh, that’s just old Joe tripping over his words. Don’t be so picky”, Biden apologists will tut. But it happens so regularly that when campaign managers finally have to let him out of the basement to take part in televised debates with Trump, Joe Biden runs a real risk of simply appearing ludicrous – beyond rescue even by his slickly spoken running mate, Kamala Harris.
Her friends are even now running a not so covert, “Never mind Joe, it’s really all about Kamala” campaign. I’m not sure the American electorate will necessarily think that’s a good thing.
Factor in the Trump paradox. In 2016 he ran as the unknown scourge of conventional Washington, now in 2020 he finds himself running as the “known” candidate. A “known” who – Twitter absurdities and West Wing chaos apart – has mostly confounded the predictions of doomsayer Democrats.
Let’s score the Armageddon brigade. The foreseen American decline forecasts made the catastrophe themes of Philip Roth novels seem tame.
War with North Korea? Nope. Crazy bonhomie instead. Cancelling NAFTA mayhem? Quietly replaced by CUSMA, the Canadian, US Mexican trade agreement. Revoking Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal? Not going so well for the Iranian economy. Moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? The recent Abraham Accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is evidence that Jared Kushner’s unfanfared and openly mocked Middle East peace overtures have actually paid off.
Did withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord bring a Thunberg, world-ending apocalypse? No visible impact so far. Slagging off Nato allies; the end of the post-war alliance? Stingy Nato members are, instead, now chipping more into the budget. Pissing off China? Even the Democrats acknowledge it’s “high time” for change here.
As former Trump adviser, John Bolton, points out in his eye-bulging book, “The Room Where it Happened”, this does not mean that any of the Trump agenda has been thoroughly thought through, let alone smoothly implemented. The Trump White House has been a circus with a perpetually revolving cast of frustrated or indifferent performers. But the scary wolf, invoked unceasingly since Trump’s election in 2016 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat chorus has been a no-show.
Watch out for another Trump “deal” that will play more and more as campaign rubber hits the road. Almost out of the blue, the President has strong-armed America’s cash-rich pharmaceutical companies into a deal that will slash drug prices for the ordinary American and should make health insurance cheaper. This matters.
The benefits of the Democrats’ Obamacare have always been nebulous at best. Trump’s four executive orders on drug pricing will promote the use of cheap generic drugs, encourage outsourced manufacturing back into to the USA and – most significantly – allow cheaper drugs to be imported. On average, drugs are 38% cheaper in Canada than in the USA. In a hat-tip to Europe, Trump has insisted on reference pricing. That’s when a drug price is fixed based on an average drug companies charge across a range of markets. There have been instances of drugs in the US trading at a 10 times multiple of the cost in foreign markets.
The whole scam was perpetuated by Washington K Street lobbyists cosying up to Republican and Democrat Congress members alike – and stuffing their campaigns with cash. If legislators find a way to thwart the presidential orders, signed in July, there will be hell to pay with voters.
The drug price policy gets to the core of Trump’s erratic genius. Find an insoluble problem, call it out, defy the cosy consensus and just kick the door down. It’s more reality show than considered politics, but it’s highly effective.
In the coming months the Republicans will be helped by the policy concessions Joe Biden was forced make to win the nomination from Bernie Sanders. Normally, post nomination, candidates desert the risky, rocky shores they headed for in search of primary votes. They tack towards the safer, deeper waters of compromise.
Not this time. The Democrats, when they take time off Trump bashing and opine on policy at all, have all rushed to Bernie Sanders land, forcing Biden along for the ride. “Sleepy Joe”, is now “Crazy Bernie”, although he does not talk policy in polite company. The socialist mud Trump will surely throw from now until November 3 is bound to stick to the Biden campaign.
Polling figures which had Biden comfortably ahead are now tightening, especially in the key red, Republican states he needs to win to achieve victory. The electoral ground that lies ahead – televised debates, Twitter-jousting and mano a mano abuse – is the battlefield for which Trump, the TV host and showman, is ideally suited.
Why, as “Make America Safe Again” is increasingly heard in the land, the Democrats are allowing themselves to be pilloried as the party that would abandon middle America to the forces of dystopia, disbanding the forces of law and order and allowing ANTIFA protesters a free hand, is almost beyond comprehension.
But, there it is. Faced with a noxious choice, my bet is the voters of Portland will seek deliverance.