Not yet another battle for the nation's soul!?

[luzribeiro]

Hmmm. These elections are going to be the most important in a lifetime... Where have I heard this before?

And it's true. Again.

When the race protests started in the US (again!), did the president turn to his compatriots with words of reconciliation, urging unity at times of crisis? Nope, wait. That was done not by the president but his opponent who behaved like a true president, unlike the actual one.

Joe Biden did that with the election in mind, no doubt, but he did do it - and he both scored lots of political points, and remained consistent with his own principles and his pattern of political behavior. Trump did, too. We'll see who wins out of this.

Trump's tactic is to divide society, and score points from there. But the country needs unity right now, more than ever, and Biden's message resonates more with that need. His speech in Phily was about the division in society, about political violence, and institutional racism. He showed compassion to George Floyd's family, and by extension, to all those other families whose members have suffered in a similar way. This way Biden dug deep into issues the actual president doesn't feel like digging into.

Biden did what a president should do, and should've done. His act was notable for another reason too: before that speech he hadn't made a public appearance since the pandemic outbreak. People were starting to get concerned that he was hiding. Meanwhile Trump, who had always demonstratively downplayed the pandemic, was running all over the place talking about the economy (and blaming everybody else for the crisis). Now, less than half a year before the elections, Biden has found the right moment to go on the offensive. If he keeps this momentum, he could clear his path toward a landslide. Unless he manages to shoot himself in the foot somehow (he's a Democrat after all!)

As callous and cynical as all this may sound, the crisis could really play into Biden's hands. The moment seems ripe for him. If he ever had a chance, now is the time to snatch it. There are protests all over the country. People are angry with the police brutality, racial profiling, and social unfairness. Many Americans are longing for the stability, reliability and predictability of peace-makers such as Biden - even though he's part of the establishment "swamp" that Trump had promised to "drain". They've grown tired of all the division, hatred, and frustration from the last 4 years. If that's what draining the swamp looks like, then no thanks, we're good staying in it, that's what they're thinking.

Instead of calming the country down and uniting it around himself, and being the messiah, Trump has done what he does best: deepening conflicts wherever he could find them. He has done unthinkable things, suggesting he'd deploy the military against the protests - prompting even military folks and some prominent figures from his side of the aisle openly rebel against him. That's how toxic he has become at this point.

And then comes Joe Biden. Talking with protesters on the street on Sunday, then talking to reps of the black communities on Monday, then talking to the entire divided nation on Tuesday. In Phily he said words like, "a wake-up call for the nation". He's shown compassion, and concern for everyone's safety. He's wearing a mask, just the opposite to Trump who refuses people around him the courtesy.

The fact that Biden hadn't appeared publicly for a while, instead of hurting him, is now helping him. The pandemic seemed likely to hurt his ability to run an efficient political campaign. Trump did relentlessly use his advantage and position of acting president, jumping from one audience to another, while remaining true to his controversial self and frequently making himself look like an imbecile (injecting disinfectant into patients, anyone?)

Compare that to Biden who made his messages from his home, radiating a stateman's composure and urging his countrymen to overcome racism together at a time of economic and pandemic crisis.

Speaking of the president in a recent interview, Biden said that the more often Trump appears in public, the more he's actually hurting himself. When asked if he was hiding in his home, Biden said this was a fact in a sense, but things were turning out well for now. Indeed, he seems to be right. Trump is trailing in all polls, the trend being further down. Things could turn around pretty fast of course, and the polls might turn out a treacherous thing as we've shown with Hillary Clinton. Or they might not.

The fact is, though, Biden is consistently beating Trump in all national polls. His advantage is somewhere in the area of 48% to 42%. But again, 2016 shows Trump should not be underestimated.

The only area where Trump is (narrowly) beating Biden is the economy. But the economy has been pushed to the sidelines by other issues. The further dynamic of events will largely depend on how quickly the economy recovers, and how the race situation will develop just before the election.

Biden has one more problem. He has long been absent from the headlines, and in those few occasions where he was featured, it wasn't for the best of reasons. Like, the sexual abuse accusations in the 90s, which he has denied (and which lack any evidence). More recently, he was criticized when he told a radio host of color that he wasn't "truly black". Such glitches and slip-ups are frequent for him, they've created a sense of senility in a sense, and they're definitely not helping.

Which is exactly why he should stress more on his central message, the one he's trying to convey to his base for months: Americans should vote for hope against fear, for unity against division. "We've been fighting for America's soul", is the slogan we've been hearing very often from his campaign. As worn-out a cliche as that may sound, it'll probably resonate best with the American voters right now.

Because Trump has turned the country into a battlefield, where the old grudges have been enhanced by new fears and even more anger. Trump may believe that division and hatred would keep working for him forever. He might have overestimated the potential of strife to sustain a political career. And right now, Biden might be the perfect guy to show him that.

What follows after, is a whole other story. But let's take things one at a time.

Comments

[ex_flameandsong751]

I sincerely hope that Biden wins and not Trump. While Biden is not as progressive a Democratic candidate as I would have liked (I would have preferred Sanders, Warren, or even Yang) and he has said cringeworthy things, he's still not Trump, and that makes a world of difference for someone like me who has a lot to lose with a second Trump administration. And for the country at large. The problems we have here in the States need a lot of work, and Trump has proven himself ill-equipped to handle them.