Trump is angry that the campaign isn’t being waged in the universe he tried to manufacture for it, one in which the most serious threat to civil society right now is organized violent left-wing terrorism.
Trump has devoted extraordinary resources to the creation of this universe. Last spring his campaign dumped at least $20 million into ads depicting the terrifying police-free dystopia that Joe Biden would allegedly create. Many of his senior law enforcement and national security officials lent official credence to an absurdly exaggerated depiction of the leftist threat.
The Biden response to this was to point out that Trump’s “law and order” rhetoric is a smokescreen for deliberately stoking white backlash while working to encourage and politically profit from violent civil strife. This was illustrated with ads suggesting that Trump encourages white supremacy and vigilante violence by his supporters.
Of course, all of that is exactly what Trump has been doing, as senior adviser Kellyanne Conway revealed when she admitted to the calculation that violence helps him politically. Yet this wasn’t supposed to be exposed. He was supposed to get away with stoking white backlash while making the debate all about exaggerated impressions of leftist violence.
And so, when Trump rages about being pressed on his flirtation with white supremacy, and insists we should be talking about antifa instead, he’s raging that he isn’t being allowed to dictate this campaign’s reality with impunity.
Indeed, the new Department of Homeland Security threat assessment — an official government document, as opposed to public statements from political appointees — concludes that white supremacist extremists pose the deadliest domestic terror threat. The fact that Biden is winning the “law and order” argument suggests reality is trumping the president‘s recasting of it.
Trump is angry that the campaign isn’t being waged in the universe he tried to manufacture for it, one in which the most serious threat to civil society right now is organized violent left-wing terrorism.
Trump has devoted extraordinary resources to the creation of this universe. Last spring his campaign dumped at least $20 million into ads depicting the terrifying police-free dystopia that Joe Biden would allegedly create. Many of his senior law enforcement and national security officials lent official credence to an absurdly exaggerated depiction of the leftist threat.
The Biden response to this was to point out that Trump’s “law and order” rhetoric is a smokescreen for deliberately stoking white backlash while working to encourage and politically profit from violent civil strife. This was illustrated with ads suggesting that Trump encourages white supremacy and vigilante violence by his supporters.
Of course, all of that is exactly what Trump has been doing, as senior adviser Kellyanne Conway revealed when she admitted to the calculation that violence helps him politically. Yet this wasn’t supposed to be exposed. He was supposed to get away with stoking white backlash while making the debate all about exaggerated impressions of leftist violence.
And so, when Trump rages about being pressed on his flirtation with white supremacy, and insists we should be talking about antifa instead, he’s raging that he isn’t being allowed to dictate this campaign’s reality with impunity.
Indeed, the new Department of Homeland Security threat assessment — an official government document, as opposed to public statements from political appointees — concludes that white supremacist extremists pose the deadliest domestic terror threat. The fact that Biden is winning the “law and order” argument suggests reality is trumping the president‘s recasting of it.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/16/trumps-rage-nbc-town-hall-exposes-an-ugly-truth-about-2020/