Even though Trump is currently "in charge" of national meltdown events as president, he persists in shrieking that should Joe Biden become president, the nation will experience … MELTDOWN EVENTS! — such as the rare violence connected to BLM protests taking place during his presidency.
The logic of Trump's reelection rhetoric — You won't see all this violence if I stay around — is as illogical as that of any other serpent-tongued grifter and con man. It is to be expected, and, to most of us, laughable.
What worries, however, is that throngs of independents, soft Democrats and once-realigning Republicans will decisively fail to appreciate the full Montyism of Trump the Emperor's pronunciamentos.
"In Kenosha County, where the president won by fewer than 250 votes in 2016," notes the Times, "some voters who [have benn unsure] of their choice said the chaos in their city and the inability of elected leaders to stop it were currently nudging them toward the Republicans."
Take, for instance, John Mr. Geraghty, 41, "'100 percent on the fence' about who he will vote for in November." He "said he was disturbed to see his town looking like 'a war zone,' and he feared that the Democrats in charge were 'letting people down big time.'" Added Geraghty: "The Democratic agenda to me right now is America is systematically racist and evil and the only people who can fix it are Democrats…. I’m really not happy about how Democrats are handling any of this." The gentleman was speaking specifically of state leaders, but straight-ticket voting has become preponderant in this era.
To repeat, as does the Times, "The politically calculated warnings of President Trump and the Republican Party about chaos enveloping America should Democrats win in November are reverberating among some people in Kenosha." We can't know how many people are "some people," yet if the number is in the 250 range, in a county of 170,706, then the Dems have more work to do — within only 66 days.
On a related note, it seems to me that MSNBC's programming hasn't helped much, however earnest its many guests are. In watching most any interview on the BLM protests, especially those interviews with black activists, one does get the impression that America is "evil" — without or without Trump's leadership failures. That is critically unhelpful to Biden.
Few fence-sitting, middle- or working-class whites, such as factory worker John Geraghty, want to hear that the country they love is a wicked one, through and through. They may agree it suffers from systemic racism, and condemn it — but racism of the type that extends rearward to 1619? This they will only resent, and perhaps tie Biden to what they see as activists' rhetorical hyperbole. Please, activists, always separate the Democratic presidential nominee's future from your present anger.