Can Trump persuade voters that Biden’s America would be the Wild West?

For better or worse, the myth of the Wild West is deeply rooted in the soul of America. It lies behind the nation’s missionary zeal, its conviction that it had a “manifest destiny” to civilise a continent and ultimately the world. The Wild West is loved because it symbolises the open frontier, the infinite potential of liberty, but also the state of nature from which the United States has emerged. It is the necessary context for the American hero: the sheriff, the lawman who imposes order on chaos, thirsts for justice and punishes the lawbreakers.

It is this potent myth that Donald Trump has sought to mobilise during this summer of discontent. Last week, winding up the Republican National Convention, he presented himself as the law incarnate, a latter-day Wyatt Earp. He reduced the presidential election to a very simple choice: the good cop versus the bad cop. Joe Biden, his opponent, has played into the President’s hand by using a similar metaphor: the Democrat sees the November election as a contest between the forces of darkness and light. Trump turned that against him: “America is not a land cloaked in darkness,” he insists. “America is the torch that enlightens the entire world.” In such a battle for hearts, rather than minds, the incumbent stands a much better chance than he would in a more complex debate about his record in office, his personal behaviour and his handling of coronavirus. If America really is reverting to the Wild West, crying out for a John Wayne or a Clint Eastwood to restore order, then Trump looks more plausible in the part than Biden.  

The key passages in that speech were an attempt to reassure ordinary, apolitical Americans that he shared their fear of disorder and violence, their need to reassert the values on which the Founding Fathers built the republic. He invoked Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and other Presidents, Democrats included, who had helped bring about “the miracle that is our American story”. He presented the voters with an existential choice: “This election will decide if we save the American dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny,” he said. “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.”

Trump contrasted Biden’s view of America as “a land of racial, economic and social injustice” with his own defence of “the American way of life”. He reduced all the complex questions of politics and policy to a simple question: “How can the Democratic Party ask to lead our country when it spent so much time tearing down our country?”

On such basic, brutal, binary choices do elections turn. In 2016, Trump was able to persuade enough voters that it was time for a change to overturn Hillary Clinton’s commanding lead in the polls. This time, with Biden also ahead, Trump hopes to do it again. Despite a groundswell of disgust at what many see as his undignified, unbecoming, even undemocratic language and conduct, the President hopes to cut through by exploiting the violence that now stalks the streets of many towns, cities and states run by Democratic mayors and governors.

Tomorrow Trump will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, where an ugly police shooting of a black suspect has mushroomed into rioting. Even worse has been the situation in Portland, Oregon, where Black Lives Matter protests have taken place every night for three months since the death of George Floyd. Recently, counter-demonstrations there by conservative groups such as Patriot Prayer have exacerbated the tension. In such combustible conditions, violence and intimidation are inevitable. On Saturday, a Patriot Prayer member, Jay Bishop, was shot dead amid escalating riots. Trump had used Portland in his speech last week, claiming that Joe Biden “will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No American will be safe in Biden’s America. My administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement.” If he can make this charge stick, it could be lethal to Biden’s campaign.

The Democratic candidate won’t take this lying down. Today, he will finally come out of his comfort zone in Delaware to deliver a speech in Pennsylvania at which he is expected to respond to Trump’s accusations. He needs to show that he is not weak on law and order. That means distancing himself from some of his radical supporters. He also needs to rein in his running mate. Kamala Harris has been playing to the liberal gallery, claiming that black Americans have “never been treated as fully human”. Her own career belies this claim: having risen to District Attorney in San Francisco, then Attorney General of California, she made her name as a tough law-enforcer. In the post-Obama era, it is simply not credible for a rich and successful black woman such as Senator Harris to play the victim. Biden needs her now to emphasise her credentials as an upholder of the law.

There is one thing that Biden and Harris could do that would certainly alienate thousands of BLM radicals, but might resonate with millions of ordinary Americans. In last week, a video  has gone viral that shows a black Democratic congressman denouncing his own party for turning a blind eye to riots and undermining the police. Representative John J. Deberry Jr. is the son of a prominent civil rights campaigner who marched with Martin Luther King. Having sat as a Democratic representative for Memphis, Tennessee, since 1994, this summer he was removed from the ballot by the party machine and now sits as an Independent in Congress. Deberry is a controversial figure, but he speaks for many black Americans as well as others when he contrasts the peaceful aims and methods of the 1960s civil rights movement with the more militant tactics of BLM. “Men and women of courage, integrity and class,” he said. “These are the people we should admire and try to emulate.” Who could disagree?

If Biden and, especially, Harris were to reach out to Deberry, inviting him and those who share his concerns to return to the Democratic fold, it would send out a powerful signal. Elections are won on the centre ground; that is where Deberry stands.

As President, Biden would have to govern for the whole country, not just those who share his views. He needs to show that he, and his likely successor, are not closing their eyes and ears to what is happening in Portland. After the shooting there, Trump tweeted in his inimitable style: “This is not what our great Country wants. They want Safety & Security, and do Not want to Defund our Police!” Unless Biden and Harris can agree with Trump on this point, if nothing else, they are heading for a repetition of 2016.