U.S. President Donald Trump turned to a timeworn playbook as race-related unrest swept the streets, down to tweeting old Richard Nixon catchphrases about law and order. But the old playbook isn’t working. His poll numbers are down. And the country has changed since 1968.
U.S. President Donald Trump dusted off old Richard Nixon catchphrases as civil unrest swept the streets, tweeting “LAW & ORDER!” and “SILENT MAJORITY!“
It appears the old playbook isn’t working.
The country looks different than it did in 1968, when Nixon was elected president. The level of unrest is different. Attitudes on race are different.
And the electorate is responding differently.
It was in that 1968 election that Anne Goodnight began voting Republican, spurred by frustration with the escalating Vietnam War.
Now it’s goodbye from 75-year-old Goodnight.
“I thought I would give him a chance [in 2016],” the Florida retiree said of Trump on Friday.
“[But several] months into his presidency I thought, ‘What have I done? This is a terrible mistake.’ I would vote for a dog-catcher now before I vote for Trump. I will vote for Joe Biden.”
She unleashed a list of personal and policy attributes she found distasteful in the president, from his lavish use of trade tariffs, to his parsimony with the truth.
She added a recent one — involving race relations — and made sure to mention that she was speaking as the granddaughter of a Confederate soldier.
Goodnight said the country needs a new attitude on race, and she said Trump should have been more supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests.
‘It’s backfiring’
In a week where the military and NASCAR stock-car circuit moved to ditch Confederate symbols, Trump defended them.
“It’s backfiring in his face,” said Jay Grewe, 46, a military veteran who grudgingly voted for Trump in 2016, and is now done with him.
“I think people really see it for what it is.”
There’s no law-and-order bounce for Trump in the polls. On the contrary, he’s continued a slide that predated the protests by several weeks.
Trump now has his lowest approval ratings of the last 16 months, according to two major polling-aggregation websites.
He’s trailing Biden, his likely general-election opponent by eight percentage points in an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.
Warning signs are even starting to flare up in the epicentre of a critical Trump stronghold: Florida retiree country.
The head of the Democratic organization in the massive Villages retirement complex that spans three counties said people are driving to her office to ask to be re-registered as Democrats.
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One striking interaction happened immediately after Trump floated using the military to put down protests.
“I had a guy show up two weeks ago. Career in the military. Thirty-something years in the Air Force,” said Chris Stanley, president of the Villages Democrats. “He came in to register. I said, ‘Gee — you must really like Biden.’
“He said, ‘No — I just really hate Trump.'”
Data supports Stanley’s claims of a momentum shift.
Several surveys, going back months, show Trump trailing badly among seniors at both the national level and in Florida.
He’s also behind in most polls in most swing states, and has been trailing badly among college-educated voters, women, and virtually every major demographic group except non-college-educated white men.
A long-term shift
So, what’s going on?
There’s a longer-term issue and a shorter-