Riots helping Trump

Zooey wrote:

waterfield wrote:

Before this is over Trump will have convinced the “deplorables” and those on the lower end of the brain stem that only his law and order will prevent those leftist thugs from breaking into your home, stealing your guns, raping your wife, and killing all your kids.

Why even give him that path.

Well…you give him that path because taking a stand against the police acting as unlawful executioners of black people is the RIGHT THING TO DO.

And even if the protesters all went home to deny Trump that angle, he would make up some other shit to stoke his base. It doesn’t matter. I mean…Caravan. Muslims. Socialists. Emails.

It doesn’t matter. They will make some shit up, and fire up the base.

So stick to doing what is right. Take a stand. Push back. I agree with zn anyway; I think he lost this round. He will be back, but he lost the battle in Portland to moms and vets and kids.

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I dunno. Law And Order is not just some ordinary issue that he’s made up. Its an issue that has a long history of working with the middle-classes in many places.
Thats why Biden is making sure not to alienate the police too much.

I think the protests may be starting to cut towards Trump AT THIS POINT. Not at the beginning, but i suspect, maybe, the Mainstream White Middle-Class is getting tired of them. I’d like to see some poll numbers that show the TRENDs, month by month on the protests, etc.

At any rate, Waterfield is just a worrier. So am I. This is like, in 99, when the Rams had clinched the playoff berth…but we knew they had to play the Vikings.
Its no use reasoning with us. We are haunted. Trump is Joe Kapp.

w
v
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

I dunno. Law And Order is not just some ordinary issue that he’s made up. Its an issue that has a long history of working with the middle-classes in many places.
Thats why Biden is making sure not to alienate the police too much.

I think the protests may be starting to cut towards Trump AT THIS POINT. Not at the beginning, but i suspect, maybe, the Mainstream White Middle-Class is getting tired of them. I’d like to see some poll numbers that show the TRENDs, month by month on the protests, etc.

At any rate, Waterfield is just a worrier. So am I. This is like, in 99, when the Rams had clinched the playoff berth…but we knew they had to play the Vikings.
Its no use reasoning with us. We are haunted. Trump is Joe Kapp.

w
v

I get worriers. But the law and order thing was ALWAYS racial…at heart, if not just plain openly. And now? This is what I mean about the shift in perceptions. Poll after poll shows the MAJORITY side with the protesters when it comes to issues of racial justice, and a majority also says that something like the Floyd killing is not an isolated incident illustrating a “bad apples” problem but an example of systemic racism in law enforcement.

We did not have numbers like that before this summer. Ever. Ferguson had the majority siding with the police and denying systemic racism.

Polls are polls, you can’t hang too much on them, but they are never JUST polls…and this is a big change. Now I don’t know if it lasts, but that’s only because I am always wary about saying things in the social/political world last.

The significance is this. Put the polls side by side. So again, the majority sides with the protests and with the idea that law enforcement has a problem with systemic racism. AND ALSO, the majority does NOT buy Trump’s law and order rhetoric about the protests and in fact, sending the Feds to Portland actually backfired on him. To borrow (not inappropriately) from Harry Potter, turns out the wand’s not really his and the curse rebounded on him.

Those 2 things go together. Majority sides with protests against systemic racism, majority not buying the law and order schtick.

There’s a lot of evidence that the old playbook may not be working.

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Look at how you phrased that: There’s a lot of evidence the old playbook MAY not be working.

I dunno.

And the poll you posted said something like 54 percent or 52 percent — whats the margin of error on that? And what was the exact wording? And when was it taken? And is the TREND going in one direction or the other?

I wont dismiss the polls, and in some ways a lot of things are encouraging these days…but things are still very fluid. Thats what i think, anyway. Very fluid. Which means i see Waterfield’s point.

And its one thing to say in a survey “I support the protestors” — but thats not the same thing as supporting the violent-protestors.

Can Trump convince mainstreamers he supports the protestors just not the ‘violent protestors’? Thats the question. Thats the worry.

Trumps approach worked with immigration. Same playbook. He supports immigration — just not ‘illegal’ immigration. Etc, and so forth.

w
v

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Look at how you phrased that: There’s a lot of evidence the old playbook MAY not be working.

I dunno.

And the poll you posted said something like 54 percent or 52 percent — whats the margin of error on that?

w
v

Well it;s not just a poll, there’s an entire perception out there if you read around. And it’s not just 52%, it’s 52% v. 30%.

If I didn’t post a poll and asked you to guess the percentage who would NOT buy the law and order rhetoric v. those who did, would you ever have come up with 52% on the former v. 30% on the latter?

Those numbers mean something.

Trump is doing worse on that than he is on the pandemic, in terms of approval ratings.

For right now, though, I am content to say just this: keep an eye on it. Because what’s happening is unique.

Now in terms of this:

but thats not the same thing as supporting the violent-protestors.

But…that’s not important. NOBODY supports the violent protesters. Even BLM in Portland has been criticizing them. All you need to deal with that issue is to recognize it’s just few hundred graffiti warriors in a 2 block area of Portland (I don’t have the same amount of detail on Seattle). They have no significance. When Trump tried to make it seem like they were significant, it did not work.

Compare that to the fact that according to different estimates 15-26 M Americans participated in at least one protest. It’s boulders on one side of the scale, and a few pebbles on the other side.

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Yeah, yeah, you said not to worry before the playoff game against the Vikes in 99.

And look how THAT turned out, Mr Numbers.

w
v

waterfield wrote:

The “RIGHT THING TO DO” for this country and future generations is to get rid of Trump !

Of course. We’re just disagreeing about the idea that we should sacrifice a powerful movement and its peaceful protests just cause Trump tried (and failed) to make an issue out of that small faction of graffiti warriors in Oregon.

waterfield wrote:

And I believe that a “powerful” movement loses it’s power if it ceases to accomplish it’s goal.

W, you’re telling people protesting systemic racism to stop what they’re doing because you’re afraid of a situation that does not exist–that misrepresentations of them as violent will re-elect Trump.

And so you are saying something no different from the people who confuse the small militant faction and its (laughably unthreatening) graffiti violence with the ongoing peaceful protest all over the country. Doesn’t that just put you on their side? They go, hey no more riots in the name of racial justice. And you go, hey no more protests in the name of racial justice because I am afraid of the group that (wrongly) sees you as rioting. From the point of view of caring about racial justice, what’s the difference?

You open up this thread with a quotation from a BLM spokesperson in Portland. Do you know your source takes his words out of context?

waterfield wrote:

We don’t know that do we? What if the “misrepresentation” does work against Biden and helps re-elect Trump? That is not out of the question as you seem to believe it is. In fact I think Trump and his campaign people do believe it. And that is my worry if it continues. What Trump wants is for these protests to continue as long as there is violence displayed. Regardless of whether the violence is a lot or its “a small militant faction with its (laughingly unthreatening) graffiti” his goal is to scare people. To get them to think that Willie Horton is coming to get them after he burns down a few cities.

I just received a lengthy survey from his campaign asking me to respond to issues that they think is crucial to the election. From these questions it is clear that their message will be about law and order and big government socialism. Add to that the 2d amendment, lower vs higher taxes and what you will have is a very formidable sitting President. I want this guy gone for the sake of my grandchildren and I want to close all the ways he can use to be elected. If that means no more protests-so be it.

No one here is in favor of Trump getting elected, W. We just differ on what is happening at the actual moment when it comes to his law and order rhetoric and the elections. And we’re also debating how we ourselves see the protests. You actually called for the protests to be shut down because they COULD BE (you think) distorted into Willie Horton. But W, at a certain level, there’s no difference between believing the protests are Willie Horton, and wanting to shut them down because others MIGHT believe they are Willie Horton. Either way a movement for racial justice is supposed to be compromised because of Willie Horton rhetoric.

And it’s not necessary to make that move, to come out against the protests because of Willie Horton fears. What is ACTUALLY happening is this–the population is NOT accepting Trump’s law and order rhetoric and his effort to act like graffiti warriors in Portland are (1) a really significant crisis, and (2) representative of the protests in general (if nothing else millions of people attended protests this summer so they know better.)

The info on that is just too abundant to ignore.

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from https://truthout.org/articles/poll-majority-of-americans-have-negative-view-of-trumps-handling-of-protests/

Most Americans do not believe the aggressive tactics which President Donald Trump has employed to quell uprisings in cities across the country are making the situation better, a new poll has found. According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Friday, just 36 percent of the country approves of the way Trump is responding to protests against racism and police violence. An overwhelming majority, 64 percent, say they disapprove of what he’s done.

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from https://buzzflash.com/articles/probably-why-trump-pulled-his-stormtroopers-from-portland-new-poll-indicates-overwhelming-majority-of-americans-have-negative-view-of-trumps-handling-of-protests

Most Americans do not believe the aggressive tactics which President Donald Trump has employed to quell uprisings in cities across the country are making the situation better, a new poll has found…. Trump’s use of federal law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as the U.S. Marshals Service to deal with protesters is having a negative effect, according to a majority of those polled.

Something new for the worriers to worry about – the gun issue. Will this hurt Biden?

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