Horror week of US protests could not come at a worse time for Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump returns to the White House from St. John's Church. Picture: AFP

This was a terrible week for Donald Trump. In fact it’s been a terrible three months for the US president.

We are less than halfway through 2020, but already this year is shaping up to be – by some way – the worst of his presidency and his prospects for re-election have taken a hit.

Trump has been dealt a series of blows that were not of his making – the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic collapse and now the worst race protests and civil unrest since the 1960s.

But in each of these historic crises Trump’s leadership has been caught short and widely criticised – a fact which is now being reflected in the polls and which is triggering growing alarm inside the Trump campaign.

US President Donald Trump walks past police in Lafayette Park after he visited St John's Church across from the White House. Picture: AP

The first polling on Trump’s handling of this week’s stunning civil unrest sparked by the police killing of African-American George Floyd is in, and it’s not pretty for the White House.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 55 per cent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the protesters – 40 per cent strongly – with just one-third saying they approved.

Among Republicans, only 67 per cent approved of the way Trump has responded to the protests, lower than the 82 per cent who approve of his overall job performance

In other words, Trump’s decision to choose a bellicose and divisive response to the crisis rather than a unifying one has damaged rather than helped him.

Trump has gambled heavily on the notion that he will eventually benefit politically by portraying himself as the strongarm ‘law and order president’ in the face of these national protests.

The best chance of this occurring is if the small percentage of ragbag looters and criminals who have exploited the largely peaceful protests continue to cause trouble in the days ahead.

But the past several nights have seen large but peaceful protests without the looting and violence that marred protests earlier this week.

Trump has been widely ridiculed for his stunt of forcibly gassing and pushing peaceful White House protesters out of the way so he could walk to the St John’s church for a photo opportunity.

US President Donald Trump holds a Bible while visiting St John's Church. Picture: AFP

His threat to use US soldiers to restore order in American cities has been rebuked by his own Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Trump’s former defence secretary Jim Mattis has broken his silence to label Trump the most divisive president in his lifetime and one who has blurred the line between civilian and military in the US.

Rather than emerging from these protests as a law and order president, Trump has so far emerged from them as a diminished figure, as a leader whose bark is worse than his bite, a paper tiger.

This could not come at a worse time for him with polls already showing that the majority of Americans believe he has mishandled the disastrous coronavirus pandemic which has cost 109,000 lives and 42 million jobs.

US President Donald Tump’s polling numbers have taken a hit. Picture: AP

Polls now show Trump’s Democrat opponent Joe Biden stretching his lead significantly over Trump in key battleground states.

Two closely watched polls – the Monmouth University poll and the ABC News/Washington Post poll show Biden with a double-digit lead over Trump while the bell-weather RealClear Politics average of polls gives Biden a 7.8 percentage point lead over Trump, up from 5.3 points a month ago.

Private Republican polling, revealed by the New York Times this week, found Trump’s numbers plunging in states he was expected to win, including Ohio, Arizona and Iowa.

Trump has defied the polls before but with just five months to go before the election, this is not where Trump wants to be right now.

America is going through one of the bleakest moments in its modern history and presidents are usually defined by their leadership in times of crisis. Trump is struggling badly.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia