If you want to know what Donald Trump's campaign will look and sound like, Nathan Robinson writes, consider the speech he gave at Mount Rushmore:
The general thrust of Trump’s speech was: this country is not threatened by a virus, it is threatened by a protest movement that aims to destroy our culture and history. At a time when Covid-19 cases are growing by the tens of thousands every day, Trump tried to shift the focus to “cancel culture” and the activists who have been trying to tear down controversial monuments:
Trump accused his opponents of trying to wipe out American history:
Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities … One of their political weapons is “cancel culture” – driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism.
Trump had a problem pronouncing totalitarianism. It was a clear sign of his desperation:
It’s clear what Trump is doing here. His presidency is in crisis. The economy has collapsed, and the administration has proved itself totally incapable of containing the coronavirus, instead promoting irresponsible reopenings that are now causing infection surges. Joe Biden, while uninspiring, is polling well against Trump because nearly everyone is dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Trump cannot pretend that things are going well, because people can see plainly that this is not the case. All he can do is try to whip up the culture war, to get his supporters to see themselves as being in an existential war against a fascist left.
His target audience is aggrieved whites. And he knows how to whip up hatred in their ranks:
They’re the ones whose country and culture is being supposedly “lost”; it seems unlikely that many Native Americans will miss an Andrew Jackson statue. Trump is relying on these white people being angry and aggrieved enough to get him re-elected in November. But it’s a desperate tactic. People’s minds are on other things, like the deadly disease killing their grandparents and destroying social life as we know it.
They were his audience in 2016. Others decided to take a flyer on him. They have since come to regret their decision. Trump knows that. So all he has left to run on is hate -- pure and simple.
Image: PolitiFact
6 comments:
Whipping up hate (remember the migrant caravan) cost his party control of the House in 2018. But it's all he's got - as his niece Mary indicates, hate is the core of Donald Trump.
He's proven himself to be the laziest, most incompetent president ever. He's not even a competent manager. Despite prompting from Sean Hannity, he couldn't even say what he'd like to achieve if re-elected.
I fear Trump's hate-mongering is a prelude to something darker, as the American empire collapses much faster than I'd anticipated.
Cap
Americans have put themselves in this place, Cap. They deny their responsibility for what has happened. And so, they have elected the Denier-in-Chief.
trump has used deflection well during his days in the Oval office. To a great extent the American MSM has played along. He in my opinion is a racist and has always been.
During the last election trump caught the dissatisfaction of millions of working class whites who did not do well as the economy improved in the U.S.A. They were the "forgotten" ones and they hated Clinton.
Once trump was in office he stayed with the hate because it worked. He is incompetent and he's a nasty piece of business. He in my opinion wants nothing more than a race war. He also would like to help Putin and stay in office for the rest of his days and then pass it on to one of his spawn.
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Nothing donni has done has come as a surprise to me and I don't expect anything he does between now and election day will surprise me either. the Republicans let him do this, the voters who put him into office have let him do this. This is how a first world country slips into a second world country within 4 years. We're just all surprised this is happening in the U.S.A. but we ought not to be surprised. Over the course of history its happened to other countries/empires, etc.
You're right, e.a.f. It's an old story and it happens over and over again.
Trump has not merely failed the American people, he has betrayed them. The cruel streak his niece writes of is irrepressible. Steven Miller knows this and playing to it is how he keeps Trump's ear.
I agree with Cap on that country's difficult, perhaps impossible future. There's a seething hatred at work in that land at the very moment it is in dire need of social cohesion. It's like forgetting how to breathe.
Other counties have committed national suicide, Mound. The United States wouldn't be the first.
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