The Preamble to the United States Constitution defines “insure domestic tranquility” as a fundamental responsibility of the Federal government. As President of the United States, Donald Trump is sworn to uphold this provision.
Yet as New Jersey native Kellyanne Conway made clear upon her departure, this is a provision of the Constitution that Donald Trump intends to violate every day until election. As the departing counselor to the president stated without reservation, “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”
So Donald Trump is trying to promote domestic discord by provoking a war with Black America. It is clear what set him off on the latest, totally unhinged stage in this war: the highly rated ABC-Ipsos poll, which was published this weekend. (Here is a detailed report on the poll)
The poll proved conclusively that the recent Republican National Convention was an abysmal failure for the Trump campaign, perhaps the worst convention failure in modern political history.
The bottom line: After both conventions, Joe Biden’s favorable/unfavorable has improved by six points to 46-40. By contrast, Trump lost four points, down to 31-59.
And on the Coronavirus issue, the defining issue of the campaign, Trump continues to meet with an overwhelming 63 percent disapproval.Yet there was even worse news from the Morning Consult poll regarding voters of color, as follows:
“At the same time, Trump left the convention with a slightly worse standing among voters of color, trailing Biden by 28 points among Hispanic voters (33 percent to 61 percent) and 74 points among Black voters (9 percent to 83 percent)”
Black Lives Matter. And unfortunately for Donald Trump, so do Black votes.
So Donald Trump, in desperate condition in the polls perceives himself as having only one alternative: To foment domestic discord, as Kellyanne Conway stated above, Trump is provoking a domestic war. And his clear target is the constituency that most disapproves of him. Black America.
This past Saturday, a caravan of approximately 600 Trump supporters drove into Portland, Oregon, seeking a clash with demonstrators protesting on behalf of Black Lives Matter. These Trump supporters launched paintball pellets at opponents and used bear spray as counter-protesters threw things at the Trump caravan. Donald Trump referred to these Black-hating supporters of him as “great patriots.”
Black Lives Matter protestors stood outside the Hatch Act -violating Trump Convention speech at the White House Thursday night. Trump called them “thugs.”
An Illinois teen-ager and supporter of Trump, seventeen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, is charged with homicide in the shooting deaths of two protestors demonstrating on behalf of African-Americans in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Trump refuses to comment.
However, his son, Donald, Jr., retweeted a supportive message about Rittenhouse. The President has done nothing to get Donald, Jr. to remove his obscene endorsement.
And pathetic Trump sycophant, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, refused to condemn Rittenhouse’s vile act, but simply referred to it as a tragedy.
Donald Trump’s entire life has been a chronicle of anti-African-American race hatred: his discrimination against Blacks seeking rentals in his Brooklyn housing projects in the 1970s, his defamation of the Central Park Five in the late 1980s, his embrace of the anti-Obama “Birther” movement. Now in the last year of his presidency, Trump’s career bigotry is crowned by his anti-Black race war to save his presidency.
I must give a warning to those of you who, like me, are passionate opponents of Trumpist bigotry, corruption, and mendacity. The following defamation technique of Trump supporters, which you may become subjected to, is right out of the Nazi playbook.
The Nazis used to defame their opponents as being mentally ill. Trump fascistic supporters defame his critics as having a mental illness, “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” or “TDS” for short. There is no such mental illness – this is just a technique of libel and slander of Trump fascists who are attempting to discredit Trump’s critics.
I confess that I am a little sensitive to this – I lost a quarter of my extended family in the Holocaust. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of voters who read Trumpist claims that somebody has “TDS” will recognize this for the lie that it is.
The Trump race war will make this the ugliest campaign of our lifetime. Our democracy will survive. In the debates, Joe Biden will expose Trump for the unfit leader that he is and reduce him to rubble. Donald Trump’s American carnage will be over on January 20, 2021.
Special thanks to our friends at InsiderNJ.COM – Be sure to check them out for some super political coverage.
Alan Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.
