Republicans Go All-In on Riots - but it's a Risky Strategy that Could Backfire
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
By: Logan Phillips
Date: August 31st
Following the conclusion of the Republican Party’s convention, we now have a much clearer picture of the central argument that the Trump campaign will be deploying until Election Day.
Democrats support violence in the streets – you won’t be safe in Biden’s America, but I will protect you.
Joe Biden is a trojan horse for socialist economic policy.
I built the best economy, in history and I will do it again.
These were the three messages emphasized the most throughout the slickly produced convention. This is very much a fusion of the classic Trump playbook and the classic Republican party playbook – although far more flamboyantly in the Trump era than they probably ever have been before. The messaging on riots is becoming the growing focal point, not just at the RNC, but in Trump’s recent rallies and interviews. He is clearly comfortable about this, as he always is when he’s on the attack, but is it really the best strategy in a year where the nation is almost consumed with crises?
While this is the type of messaging that Trump feels far more comfortable talking about, it’s a much harder strategy to run in 2020 than in normal years. The Coronavirus and the economic pain it spurred have been the defining forces in American life over the last six months – and they will be high on the mind of voters when they cast their ballots. In fact, on the rare occasion RNC speakers addressed it, they often framed it as something America had already triumphed over – and a smashing example of Trump’s success as a leader. Even those prone to the most favorable interpretation of the President’s management of Covid-19 might still find it a bit premature to roll out the proverbial mission accomplished banner.
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Typically, the clear answer for an incumbent facing a historic challenge is to focus squarely on the issue, and use it as an opportunity to show the American people that they can unite the country and lead in difficult times. Most of his predecessors had to varying degrees a capacity to adjust their governing style and messaging in line with shifts in the nation’s needs and the desires of the electorate. This isn’t Trump’s style, and he is evidently uncomfortable talking about the coronavirus pandemic, let alone racial justice. The RNC is clearly well aware of this, so they have embraced an alternate pathway to victory. Rather than play to win the battlefield as it stands, they’re making a bold play to change the battleground to more comfortable territory.
There’s a certain logic to a high risk, high reward strategy to change the contours of a race that has not been kind to Donald Trump. However, there’s a real possibility this was the wrong tactical choice. The more complicated a message, the harder it is to execute. This strategy requires voters to be convinced of three different things for it to work.
First, and most difficultly, they must convince a significant percentage of voters that are not dyed in the wool Republicans that this is somehow as important to their vote as Coronavirus and the economy. I’m not sure that is possible this year.
Second, they have to convince Americans that Biden is on the side of violence, or at least too weak to stop it. That likely requires Joe Biden to play this poorly, which they can’t take for granted.
Third, they’ll have to prove that Trump will protect them from the violence. This also isn’t easy, given that riots are already happening in Trump’s America.
Potential Blowback
Trump seems to be seriously underrating the possibility that the stick of dynamite he is trying to throw at Joe Biden could just as easily blow up in his own face. This past week, a 17-year-old drove up to Kenosha with a long rifle and killed two protestors. He is a Donald Trump supporter who sat in the first row of a rally. In another instance, violence broke out between 600 Trump supporters and protestors in Portland, which led to the death of a Trump supporter.
The violence is ratcheting up at the same time the rhetoric is becoming more extreme, and Trump might look more like the arsonist gleefully pouring gasoline on the political pyre then the fireman quenching the flames. If this becomes the primary narrative – and there are already signs it’s starting to take root, then this issue could make things worse for the Trump campaign. Donald Trump was only trailing Biden by five percent in May, but he ended up down nine because voters saw him as exactly this – especially when he ordered force against peaceful protestors advocating for civil rights. There are no guarantees that he has the restraint to avoid making a similar extreme error in judgement in the coming months.
There’s also a concern that by focusing so much on riots and exaggerating their potency, he ends up looking like a bit of a ham that doesn’t take the real cries of his presidency seriously. The RNC already played into this by having so many speakers make some of the most absurd and fantasy laden claims we’ve ever heard at a convention. One unbelievable gaffe was footage labeled “Joe Biden’s America” of violent riots on the streets. It wasn’t Joe Biden’s America, it wasn’t Donald Trump’s America, or even America at all. It was from Prime Minister Sanchez’s Spain.
The footage was from a 2019 Barcelona protest. By sheer luck this didn’t go viral, but plenty of other nonsense claims did – including Kimberly Guilfoyle, who claimed Democrats were trying to enslave Americans, control their thoughts, and destroy the country. Speakers warned that Joe Biden was going to make America a communist fascist nation. Maybe these appeals make sense to his most hard-core supporters, but the risk is that they are so extreme that they undercut any appeal of his message.
Finally, this could really exacerbate Trump’s challenges with the white college educated and suburban vote that is leaving the Republican party in wide numbers because they don’t like the culture wars and the divisive rhetoric. They’re already frustrated with his unwillingness to take on issues of racial justice and this strategy will inflame their concerns. The Trump campaign is clearly worried about this and tried to soften the blow by putting more of a focus on criminal justice reform then any Republican convention in recent memory. It was a bit head spinning to see the McCloskeys – a couple famous only because they ran outside and aimed guns at peaceful protestors purely because they used their private road on their way to a rally – get a prominent role in the convention only to be followed later that night by Black Republican Senator Tim Scott, who powerfully discussed how his grandfather was never even given the opportunity to learn to read as a kid, but saw his grandson become a Senator.
Despite my view that this is a poor decision for the long run, it’s possible this could gain Trump a few points in the short term, and the convention may have assuaged a minority of white Suburban voters concerns for a few weeks. However, I am skeptical that he can maintain those gains running this type of campaign. Before long, the convention will fade from people’s memories, and the nuance introduced from black speakers will be long gone and replaced by the President’s voice and his voice alone.
Regardless of how you feel about the President, it’s self-evident that Donald Trump does not do nuance. He rarely misses a chance to take things too far. This will be especially true if he thinks this strategy is working for him – because he will then ratchet it up to an even higher level.
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After the Democratic Convention we argued that the thing to watch was Biden’s approval rating. The RNC should consider it a success if Biden’s lead is contracted to six points over the next week and a half, and a great success if it’s contracted to five. Trump would still be the underdog then, but an improvement in the Coronavirus situation, the economy, or a string of great debates could put the race back to a two to four percent margin in the polls, which could quite feasibly enable another upset on Election Day.
The second thing to watch is what voters claim as their most important issue for the election. Prior to the convention, an NBC/WSJ poll asked voters to rank their top two issues in a list of nine. They ranked crime eighth. We’ll watch to see if crime or the riots starts to become a top issue for voters in these surveys. If it does, that’s a good sign for the GOP. However, that will need to endure for months, not just for a week, for this strategy to succeed.
