A few weeks ago, Trump was on the run with horrible polling on his handling of the pandemic and economy, his divisive comments, and his unending corruption and destruction of our democracy. After George Floyd's murder by police the protests for racial justice started, and led to violent conflicts between protesters, police and National Guard, culminating in the travesty of innocent protesters being beaten and tear gassed in Lafayette Park. Trump was almost universally condemned for this fascistic power play for a worthless photo op, and support for BLM was high among the American public.
However, the protests and violence have now overwhelmed all other issues in the media, and there are dramatically fewer news stories in the media stressing how many people are still dying from Covid-19 with no national plans to increase testing and keep people safe. Red states have curtailed testing to make the probably temporary leveling off in Covid-19 transmissions seem like the pandemic is no longer a crisis, and the useless media has obliged Trump by moving on to other stories. Trump has managed to change the subject from his incompetence and failure to protect the country to social injustice issues, which he has much stronger approval for among the country's many racists (some of which are unfortunately Democrats).
Democratic leaders, especially Biden and Harris, need to start exercising some leadership and redirect the righteous anger of the protesters to getting them registered and to the voting booth. Quit having protests in places with lots of stores that criminals or outside agitators can come in and loot to make the protesters look bad, and make sure everyone goes home before sunset when the trouble usually starts. All Democratic leaders need to get involved with these protests and do everything they can to march these protesters straight from places where violence and mischief are likely to break out to places where they can peacefully register voters and make sure their votes get counted. Turn these protests into more positive events with music and determined and optimistic speeches.
These continued violent images in the media will eventually scare enough people to make it a bigger issue than the pandemic, and Trump’s approval will go up. Just like Comey abruptly shifting the media narrative from Trump’s scandals to Hillary’s emails in the 2016 election, these violent protests have the risk of dramatically shifting the media narrative to something less damaging to Trump. The corrupt media will be happy to go along with this because the violence and destruction are like porn that the media promotes to get ratings and make money, and they need a horse race to keep people watching.
Get back to attacking Trump for his failure to protect the country from Covid-19 and letting 180K people die, not doing anything to help the millions of unemployed people, continuing to try to destroy the ACA and coverage for pre-existing conditions, his unbelievable lies and corruption, and being Putin's puppet. Has everyone forgotten that Trump and the Republicans still want to destroy Social Security and Medicare as evidenced in Republican budget proposals and threats to stop payroll deductions that fund Social Security?
People need a reminder of all the horrible things the Republicans stand for. And start challenging Republicans on their own turf… family values. Highlight the “grab them by the pussy” tape, Trump cheating on his wife with Stormy Daniels while his wife was pregnant, assaulting women, locking children in cages… there are a million examples of his diseased morals that should shock and nauseate any true Christian. Where is the f*@king OUTRAGE among Democrats? If we don’t care enough to express real outrage about these things in over-the-top terms, don’t expect anyone else to care.
Face it, there isn't going to be any racial justice (or any other type of justice) in the next 2 months before the election. If Democrats keep playing into the Republicans hands by having protests that can easily be infiltrated and manipulated by white supremacists to create violence, looting, and destruction, Trump may be re-elected. Our democracy will then surely get flushed down the toilet by the Republican fascists. If Democrats can’t think strategically and concentrate on doing what is necessary to win the election for the next 2 months, we’re going to be shocked and horrified in November like we were in 2016, and many more people will pay for our failure with their lives.
