Donald Trump has unified America - against him. Robert Reich
'The president’s assault on decency has created an emerging coalition, across boundaries of race, class and partisan politics.
Donald Trump is on the verge of accomplishing what no American president has ever achieved – a truly multi-racial, multi-class, bipartisan political coalition so encompassing it could realign US politics for years to come.
Unfortunately for Trump, that coalition has come into existence to prevent him from having another term in office.
Start with race. Rather than fuel his base, Trump’s hostility toward people protesting the police killing of George Floyd and systemic racism has pulled millions of white Americans closer to black Americans. More than half of whites now say they agree with the ideas expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement, and more white people support than oppose protests against police brutality. To a remarkable degree, the protests themselves have been biracial.
As John Lewis, the great civil rights hero who died on Friday, said last month near where Trump and William Barr, the attorney general, had set federal police in riot gear and wielding tear gas on peaceful protesters, “Mr President, the American people … have a right to protest. You cannot stop the people with all of the forces that you may have at your command.”
Even many former Trump voters are appalled by Trump’s racism, as well as his overall moral squalor. According to a recent New York Times/Sienna College poll, more than 80% of people who voted for Trump in 2016 but won’t back him again in 2020 think he “doesn’t behave the way a president ought to act” – a view shared by 75% of registered voters across battleground states which will make all the difference in November.
A second big unifier has been Trump’s attacks on our system of government. Americans don’t particularly like or trust government but almost all feel some loyalty toward the constitution and the principle that no person is above the law.
Trump’s politicization of the justice department, attacks on the rule of law, requests to other nations to help dig up dirt on his political opponents, and evident love of dictators – especially Vladimir Putin – have played badly even among diehard conservatives.'>>>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/19/donald-trump-presidential-election-joe-biden-coronavirus-pandemic?
= new reply since forum marked as read
