It's no surprise that Trump is using Portland to assert his authority and attack his rivals. Successive polls in recent weeks have shown he is behind in critical battleground states,largely due to his mishandling of coronavirus,which has now killed more than 140,000 Americans.
Even fresh polling released on Sunday by Trump's preferred media outlet,Fox News, found that the President trails Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden by eight points,with the virus outranking the economy as the number one issue for voters.
Trump has publicly derided the polls as"fake",but in a sign of just how nervous his campaign has become,the President tweeted a picture of himself on Monday wearing a mask after months of downplaying their usefulness.
“We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus,and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me,your favourite President!"he tweeted.
But in the absence of a clear and consistent strategy to tackle the pandemic,the scenes in Portland fit with Trump's narrative that"angry mobs"and"left wing fascists"enabled by Democrats are destroying America’s social fabric.
It also plays into the misleading claim that Biden wants to"defund police",while appealing to voters who have growing concerns about violent anarchists,rising crime rates,and growing hostility towards police.
Many of these concerns are legitimate:just take a look at Chicago,where 63 people were shot over the past weekend,12 of them fatally,while a shockingly violent clash between protesters and police ended up with multiple officers injured,including one having his eye socket smashed.
Something clearly needs to be done,but the push to expand federal policing into"very Liberal"cities without their consent,rather than trying to work with local authorities to tackle the issue,carries risks - for the President and the people.
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Firstly,it's a test on states'rights,with Oregon's Attorney-General and its American Civil Liberties Union Foundation both moving to sue the Trump administration over its deployment of federal agents.
Secondly,there's every chance more people,including laws enforcement officers,could get hurt- or worse. In an interview withThe New York Times,for instance,freelance journalist Robert Evans,a reporter in Portland who has also reported from Iraq and Ukraine,described the situation on the ground like this:"It's as close up to the line as you can get to actual war without live rounds. It's really hard for me to see how things go much further without people dying."
Thirdly,America is a fiercely divided nation right now,which will no doubt play into the minds of voters ahead of the November 3 election. Continuing to stoke the divisions,rather than find a way to unite the country,is a worrying strategy for a nation already on edge – particular when so many of its citizens are desperate to heal.
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