This final sprint explains why Trump is heading for defeat
Opinion by
Columnist
Oct. 27, 2020 at 6:45 a.m. CDT
With just days until voting ends (let’s stop calling Nov. 3 “Election Day,” since well more than 60 million Americans have already cast ballots), Donald Trump has reminded his critics why his presidency and his campaign are crashing.
First, Trump has refused to understand that without a strategy to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, we will not enjoy a sustained economic recovery. The Post reports, “U.S. markets slumped Monday as investors grappled with uncertainty about economic stimulus negotiations and soaring coronavirus cases around the country. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 650 points, or 2.3 percent, to 27,686.”
It was not hard to figure out why. The Post also reports, “The United States hit a record high in new coronavirus cases Friday, with more than 83,700 reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins.” The markets understand what Trump does not, namely that the spike in cases disproves that we are “turning the corner” and makes clear that the economy will not be able to return to “normal” for a long time. Moreover, the White House and Senate Republicans sunk the most obvious life-raft for the economy and ignored the advice of the Federal Reserve chair in failing to pass a stimulus bill. Trump has failed to control the virus, failed to champion a federal legislative response and, as a result, failed to stabilize the economy.
In addition to the big-picture policy failure, Trump is doing a bang-up job highlighting his personal failings. He stalks out of an interview with CBS News’s Lesley Stahl (which he hyped in advance) because she promised to ask tough questions and refused to allow his lies to go unchecked. We see not only Trump’s fragile connection to reality and personal weakness, but also his inability to deal with strong women. Instead of projecting strength and competence to suburban women, he comes across as the quintessential bully whose obnoxious conduct ineptly tries to cover for a weak, cowardly personality.
Then there is Trump’s lack of a cohesive argument against Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Instead of a sane policy critique, Trump laughably resorts to leading “Lock him up!” chants at dangerous, mask-less rallies. And for what? Such a pathetic and juvenile attack underscores why Trump feared a Biden nomination, which he could neither derail with his extortion of Ukraine nor a last-minute, unintelligible Hunter Biden “scandal.”
Deprived
of a record he can run on or a logical argument against Biden, Trump resorts
to articulating President Barack Obama’s full name (Barack Hussein Obama) in an obvious effort to
stir up his xenophobic base while his son-in-law Jared Kushner reveals the family’s
racist mind-set that Black people don’t get ahead because they do not try.
Kushner, who enjoyed the advantages that come with a wealthy father augmented by marrying into affluence, declared on Monday: “President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help [Black Americans] break out of the problems that they’re complaining about, but he can’t help them be successful more than they want to be successful.” This could be a educational video for white privilege. The recycling of the view that Blacks face no systemic disadvantages and, therefore, nothing needs to be changed is unfortunately the default view of most White Christians, as Robert P. Jones explains in his book “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.”
In
other words, Trump is heading for a potentially brutal defeat because he failed
to address the most acute domestic challenge in our lifetime, never came up
with a message to counter Biden, offended women voters and resorted to blatant
racism. This has only made his problem with suburban, college-educated and
female voters even worse.
