If Donald Trump manages an astonishing win in the presidential election, concern over law and order will probably be the most important issue that gets him there. A number of US cities under Democrat leadership are in flames as peaceful protests about racial issues have turned into riots, looting, burning and killing.
The importance of this issue was evident in most speeches at the riveting second day of the Republican National Convention.
Melania Trump was the star. Her speech at the White House Rose Garden was eloquent and simple but served several purposes.
She somewhat humanised Trump, which is no easy job.
However, while she developed the theme that Trump fights for America she didn’t really try to present a warm and cuddly Trump. That would be ridiculous.
Instead, she said he gets things done and never hides what he thinks. She urged voters to judge leaders on their results rather than their words.
This has been an important theme of the Republicans. Trump ain’t pretty, but he gets the job done. It’s okay to vote for him even if you find his speech objectionable, or indeed sometimes repellent.
Because Melania genuinely doesn’t like being the centre of media or political attention, and makes speeches rarely, she is more effective when she does.
Her killer line did not directly concern Trump himself. It was this: “I also ask people to stop the violence and looting being done in the name of justice. And to never make assumptions based on the colour of someone’s skin.”
The dreadful polarisation of US society is set to continue whether Trump or Joe Biden wins on November 3. Both sides of politics have thoroughly demonised and delegitmised the other side. Whichever side loses will blame the illegitimate tactics of the winner. That so much of this polarisation revolves around race is profoundly worrying and destructive.
So far, Biden is well ahead. But when Democrats associate themselves with racial separation, anti-police crusades, and a seeming tolerance either for riots or for violence against property, they run enormous electoral risk.
The rise of the militant Black Panther Party was a factor in Richard Nixon’s narrow win in 1968. The rise of inner city crime and ineffective policing in the 1970s contributed powerfully to Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 and subsequent conservative hegemony.
And there is a flicker of encouragement in the polls for Trump.
The RealClearPolitics poll average puts Trump 7.5 per cent behind Biden, and this is now 3.5 per cent worse than where he stood against Hillary Clinton four years ago.
But the polling in the battleground states is tightening. A week ago, Trump on this measure was 0.5 per cent better off than he had been against Clinton four years ago. Now he is 1.3 per cent closer to Biden in the battleground states than he was vis-a-vis Clinton four years ago.
Trump must still be considered the underdog, but these are intensely intriguing figures.
Although I think this has been a more effective, and more rational, convention than the Democrats offered last week, it certainly had its clunky and questionable moments.
One was the speech on the first night by fundraiser Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr’s partner.
Her effort was somewhere between screech and scream, and stylistically resembled Oswald Mosley in an open-air gale when he wasn’t sure if the folks in the next village could hear.
Delivered to an empty hall, the effect was grotesque.
Similarly, the appearance of Mark and Patricia McCloskey. They are enjoying five minutes of fame for only one reason.
A Black Lives Matter protest march was wending its way past their upmarket home in St Louis and they stood on their front lawn brandishing a rifle, in the husband’s case, and a pistol, in the wife’s case. The demonstration was hostile but not violent and in the US you are allowed to own and even carry guns. The McCloskeys nonetheless have been charged with a felony.
The subtext of their appearance was a pitch to the 43 per cent of Americans who live in gun-owning households: if you defend your property you might get into trouble with the law. This is the most irresponsible moment in the Republican convention so far. It normalises the aggressive display of guns. Of course, this is America we’re talking about. The American gun culture has no equivalent in Australia.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a short speech from Jerusalem making a plausible case for Trump’s achievements in foreign policy. But the two real stars of the second day were much more powerful.
Daniel Cameron, the African-American Attorney-General of Kentucky, called out Biden, and the Democrats generally, for their gross double standards on race and the toxic way they have injected race into everything. Biden famously said to a black radio interviewer that if he couldn’t work out whether he supported Trump or Biden he wasn’t really black.
Cameron directly addressed Biden: “Mr Vice-President, look at me. I am black. I am not in chains. My mind is my own. You cannot tell me how to vote because of the colour of my skin. I support Donald Trump. The politics of identity, cancellation and mob violence are not acceptable to me.”
This was a powerful rebuttal by Cameron of the left’s entire identity politics paradigm, which strips African-Americans of their agency, humanity and individuality by consigning them designated political and historical roles whatever they might actually think themselves, and then demonising any disagreement, even from African-Americans.
A black Republican congressional candidate for Baltimore has produced a powerful video ad in which she walks through the shattered wreckage of her Baltimore district and says to Democrats: “You’ve run this city for 50 years and what have you done for it?”
This is not Republicans playing their own brand of identity politics. Rather it is Republicans, of every background, rejecting identity politics and arguing instead about real policies.
The other star was Nicholas Sandmann, a student at Covington High School who had attended a pro-life rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He was confronted by a Native American demonstrator unconnected to the rally.
Sandmann stood passively with his hands behind his back and a nervous smile on his face. It was a meaningless incident but video of it went viral.
The left-liberal media and cultural leaders savagely condemned Sandmann as a white racist, imperilling his safety and his future, before fuller video established his complete innocence.
Trump’s enemies often make his case for him.
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