Will Donald Trump become a presidential loser?

[ad_1]

Opinion: After an inept and divisive campaign, the president of the United States may well be rejected tomorrow by voters

There is nothing Donald trump he fears more than being labeled a “loser.” But after an inept campaign built on the foundation of a deliberately divisive presidency, that is precisely what awaits him. His original plan, to go for re-election with a story of economic success, collided with Covid-19. The disease also ended the planned narrative of renewed American greatness, which is not so easy to reconcile with record numbers of deaths and massive levels of infection. The great guilt changer who has long avoided the consequences of his actions deserves an ignominious fate.

Covid-19 is not his only flaw, but it is surely the most significant of his campaign. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario that played up so many of Trump’s weaknesses: lack of experience in crisis management, indifference to suffering, seeking fights with state governors and health officials, relentless drive to politicize situations, resort to magical thinking. along with a rejection of the magnitude of the pandemic and his own personal carelessness at the White House and the resulting infection.

Having declared himself a wartime leader from the start, Trump quickly gave up the fight. The urge to restart the economy was essentially selfish, as was the pretended care to reopen schools (it needed parents to get back to work to sustain the economic recovery). His imperial presidency has timely concluded by winning a crown: the coronavirus itself.

We need your consent to upload this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage additional content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Review your data and accept it to load the content.Manage preferences

From Dave Fanning’s program of RTÉ 2fm, Professor of the American Revolutionary Era at Princeton University, Sean Wilentz on why Donald Trump is the worst president in US history.

There are those who continue to follow Trump’s lead, including several red state governors. But the country seems to have come to the view that competition matters. There has to be some attempt to compromise with scientific advice and public health officials, and some ability to empathize with the plight of others.

For the first time in his presidency, Trump has lost control of the talking points and has failed to exploit the public mood. His response to the protests sparked by George Floyd’s death in late May is a good example. He presented himself as the “president of law and order,” presumably wanting a national conflagration on the scale of 1968, but his agitation of racist attitudes and fabricated antifa accusations have only worked with a minority of voters. The decision to feature Patricia and Mark McCloskey at the Republican National Convention, the St. Louis couple who brandished weapons against peaceful protesters outside their mansion, was a grotesque attempt to promote a siege mentality among suburbanites (since then, the McCloskey have been indicted on weapons charges and tampering with evidence.)

From RTÉ News, 13 Accused of Plot to Kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Start Civil War

The electorate has had to reconcile Trump’s law enforcement stance with a president who avoided paying taxes for years, surrounded himself with numerous advisers who have since been convicted, and have issued pardons to a number of reprehensible figures. He is also a president who backed the behavior of Michigan’s armed protesters, while telling the white nationalist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

At the same time, Trump’s attempts to drag his opponent, Joe biden, have been shown to be largely ineffective, in contrast to the successful memes and taunts devised against Hillary clinton four years ago. References to “Sleepy Joe” and insinuations about Biden’s age-related sharpness have been unsuccessful. Biden’s routine verbal abuse for wearing masks and adhering to social distance guidelines failed when Trump repeated it in the first debate just days before contracting the disease.

For his part, Biden has displayed strong political instincts of the kind that Hillary Clinton lacked. His language has had more resonance, including his responses to an intimidating Trump during the first debate (“Shut up, man” and “Keep barking”).

From the RTÉ News podcast States Of Mind, legendary journalist Bob Woodward explains why he thinks Donald Trump’s leadership is shocking, tragic, and shameful.

Trump successfully cultivated double standards in 2016 (such as accusing Clinton of corruption even when he refused to disclose his tax returns), but the same tactic hasn’t worked this time. Despite his and his family’s selfishness, Trump went ahead with efforts to tarnish Biden with his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine, but the main result was Trump’s impeachment. The recent attempt to shift the focus to China, with (false) claims that Biden accepted money from China as a result of his son’s trading ventures, came to a head with the revelation that Trump has maintained a bank account in that country. and it has paid more taxes there than in the United States in recent years.

While none of this matters to his base, Trump has been unwilling or unable to appeal beyond it. His obsession with indulging in unconditional adoration has him turning again and again to braying fans, though the proprietary rallies had to be reluctantly cut back.

He had the opportunity to forge a very different presidency, free from a series of ideological limitations. Plans for the redevelopment of the national infrastructure were promising, but they faded. His accomplishments consist primarily of a massive donation of taxes to the wealthy and corporations, and the imposition of a large number of judicial appointments, capped by three Supreme Court seats – actually the job of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. . His promises to repeal Obamacare and build a border wall with Mexico (let alone get paid) were pointless.

From RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland, RTÉ Washington correspondent Brian O’Donovan summarizes the last campaign weekend in the race for the White House.

Lacking a substantive and private record of the economic “trump card,” the president has abandoned the effort to articulate plans for a second term and hopes to be rewarded simply for being who he is. Faced with the prospect of defeat, he can only insist, without proof, that he will constitute the most corrupt election in American history if he loses. You can only hope that voter suppression and intimidation, coupled with legal maneuvering with the help of a conservative-dominated Supreme Court will suffice.

At his inauguration in January 2017, Trump promised what he called “an oath of allegiance to all Americans.” Referring to the marginalized in his speech, he said “we are a nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share a heart, a home and a glorious destiny.” “Hollow words were never spoken. The same speech contained a famous line about” American carnage, “but it turns out he was prophesying. The real carnage has been Trump’s own presidency. On November 3, the country has a chance to repudiate it.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the opinions of RTÉ

[ad_2]

Related