On Jan. 19, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Trump trailing Biden by 15 points — 55% to 40%. That’s the third national poll in a week that has shown Trump behind Biden by double digits. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey had Biden up 11 while a Quinnipiac University poll pegged the margin at Biden +15. A Fox News poll released July 19 had Biden up 8. Biden’s lead in the Real Clear Politics average of all national polls is now over 8 points.
It’s hard for Trump to distract the public from more than 140,000 dead and 3.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US — far and away the largest number of cases and deaths in the world — as well as 33 million unemployed, while Trump waits for the virus to magically disappear. But Trump gamely called a “news conference” July 14 in the Rose Garden, where he subjected White House reporters to a 52-minute harangue, making absurd claims about Biden’s plans if he is elected. Among other things, Trump claimed Biden would “abolish suburbs,” pursue an energy plan that “basically means no windows” in homes or offices by 2030, he said, and “cold office space in the winter and warm office space in the summer.” He would “abolish immigration enforcement,” “abolish our police departments” and “abolish our prisons, I guess.”
Biden’s party is even “calling for defunding of our military,” Trump said, extending his record of more than 20,000 false or misleading statements, as tallied by the Washington Post’s Fact Checker.
Trump continued the slander July 15, tweeting “Joe Biden and the Radical Left want to Abolish Police, Abolish ICE, Abolish Bail, Abolish Suburbs, Abolish the 2nd Amendment — and Abolish the American Way of Life. No one will be SAFE in Joe Biden’s America!” In fact, Biden opposes calls to abolish police or US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seeks new gun regulations under current judicial interpretations of the Constitution and sees the nation’s suburban voters, especially women, as a core part of his political base.
More alarming was Trump’s dispatching federal storm troopers to Portland, Ore., to occupy the downtown area and break up civil rights protests that have been going on since the May 25 death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis cop. The feds made the show of force in Portland under the pretext of protecting federal property from graffiti. The heavily armed storm troopers, who lack badges or agency insignia, refused to identify themselves and travel in unmarked vans to abduct people off the streets for questioning. The feds’ main function appears to be preserving disorder and impersonating a third-world despot’s shock troops.
Local and state officials have demanded that Trump withdraw the federal agents, who are believed to be from the Department of Homeland Security, Custom and Protection’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit and the US Marshals Special Operations Group, but otherwise are unaccountable. Among their handiwork:
• Donovan LaBella, 26, was holding a large speaker above his head across the street from the federal courthouse July 11 when a federal agent fired a “less than lethal” round that fractured his skull, which required surgery and facial reconstruction.
• Mark Pettibone, says he was confronted by armed men dressed in camouflage who took him off the street early July 15 as he was walking home from a protest. He was pushed into a van, held down and taken to a building, believed to be the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse, where he was put into a cell and read his Miranda rights, but was not told why he was arrested, nor was he provided with a lawyer. He says he was released without any citation, or record of his arrest. It’s unknown how many may have been similarly abducted.
• The next weekend, dozens of women, who said they were mothers seeking to protect demonstrators, chanted ”Feds stay clear! Moms are here!” They were tear-gassed and flash-banged by the feds. Some mothers were treated for exposure to chemical irritants.
• A 53-year-old Navy veteran, Chris David, wearing a Navy shirt July 18, was beaten with batons and pepper-sprayed by federal thugs when he challenged them to live up to their oath of office.
“I was hoping they wouldn’t shoot me, because one had a weapon pointing it right at my chest. I’m relieved that I only got hit by batons and pepper spray,” David told CNN. “The baton hits weren’t the issue, but when they used pepper spray it was over. It felt like they dumped a gallon of burning gasoline on my head.”
David said bones in his hand were broken in the confrontation and he needed surgery.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) said “the actions of federal officers escalated, rather than de-escalated, already heightened tensions in our city.”
A memo obtained by the New York Times showed the officers were deployed, even though they do not have “training in riot control or mass demonstrations,” but Trump liked the optics coming out of Portland enough that he told reporters July 20 he was considering sending federal officers to crush protests in cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland, where he said “weak” local politicians are “afraid” of demonstrators, whom he described as “anarchists” who “hate our country … We’re not gonna let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.”
While Democrats are right to be wary of polls, Republican who will be on the ballot with Trump are getting worried about what his underperformance means for their chances.
Senate Republicans are negotiating on a new coronavius stimulus bill, which includes spending in the range of $1 trillion, compared with the $3 trillion bill the House passed in May, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is demanding a five-year liability shield against coronavirus lawsuits and he is resisting another round of $600 weekly boosts in unemployment compensation, which expired at the end of July. Regular state unemployment compensation averages $333 nationally but ranges from a low of $101 in Oklahoma to $531 in Massachusetts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Republicans think nothing of offering billions to keep corporations in business but argue the $600 boost on top of the state compensation is a disincentive for the jobless to go back to work. But without the federal boost, jobless workers in most states would plunge below the poverty level for a family of four and leave them hard-pressed to make their rent payments, with employment prospects not good for the immediate future, until the coronavirus is resolved.
The House bill also included $75 billion for testing and tracing to try to get a handle on the virus spread, $100 billion to help schools safely reopen and $1 trillion for cash-strapped states to pay essential workers and prevent layoffs. The Democratic measure would give cash stipends to Americans, and bolster rental and mortgage and other safety net protections.
Trump, who promised to protect Medicare and Social Security when he ran for president in 2016, threatened to veto the new stimulus bill if it does not include a cut in payroll taxes — which would reduce revenue for Medicare and Social Security. Just another broken promise for Trump. He also wants to cut cut $25 billion from COVID testing and tracing, without which public health officials cannot control the virus until a vaccine is ready for wide distribution. Republicans must decide whether they want to die on that hill. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2020
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