The general election campaign has barely started in the United States and it has already turned into a clash of civilisations. Not a clash between Islamic and Judeo-Christian civilisation, although Donald Trump sometimes makes it sound that way. Instead, it’s a battle between two different views of American civilisation. Are we teetering anxiously on the edge of destruction? Or are we still optimistic despite recurring terrorism and mass violence?
One candidate, Trump, speaks to the gut and unabashedly stokes voters’ fears.
“If we don’t get tough ... we’re not going to have our country anymore,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando, Florida, last week. “There will be nothing — absolutely nothing — left.” Nothing?
He also accused American Muslims of willfully harboring terrorists.
“The Muslims have to work with us,” he said. “They knew that [the Orlando gunman] was bad. They knew that the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didn’t turn them in. And you know what? We had death and destruction.”
Actually, law enforcement officials say many of their best tips about potential terrorists come from Muslim communities. And Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter, was “turned in” to police at least twice.
The other candidate, Hillary Clinton, pleads for unity and proposes wonky policy plans, including such bloodless stuff as “an intelligence surge to bolster our capabilities across the board, with appropriate safeguards here at home”.
Last week, she suggested that incremental improvements in law enforcement, plus a new commitment to civility, could overcome the terrorist threat.
“I have no doubt we can meet this challenge if we meet it together,” she said. And she recalled that on September 12, 2001, “We did not attack each other; we worked with each other to protect our country ... I am so confident and optimistic that is exactly what we will do.”
There’s not much evidence for that in the campaign, though.
It’s not just horrific violence that exposes the rift in how the candidates perceive the country’s position.
Trump says he wants to “make America great again” — an America that, in his view, is losing its identity and its security because of uncontrolled immigration from Mexico and the Middle East.
Hillary says she wants to make America great too, but the “again” is missing from her version. Hillary’s America is in fundamentally good shape except for a sputtering, unequal economy.
The dichotomy is mirrored among their voters. A Pew Research Center poll in March found that 75 per cent of Trump supporters believed life in America had got worse (“for people like you”) in the last 50 years. Among Hillary supporters, only 22 per cent thought life had got worse, and 53 per cent thought life had improved. (Among voters overall, 46 per cent thought life had gotten worse, 34 per cent that it was better.)
This time, Trump may have gone too far. A chorus of Republican leaders said last Tuesday that they were distressed at their nominee’s slash-and-burn rhetoric — and at his renewed insistence that immigration from Muslim countries be stopped.
“I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country’s interest,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Republican from Wisconsin) said. I do not think it is reflective of our principles.” “The vast, vast majority of Muslims in this country and around the world are moderate. They’re peaceful. They’re tolerant. And so they’re among our best allies.”
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (Republican from Tennessee), said he was “disappointed” by Trump’s speech. “After 49 people have perished, it was not the type of speech that one would expect from someone who wants to lead our country through difficult times,” he told me.
In recent weeks, Corker and other GOP leaders have urged Trump to sound more presidential. “I must admit that I am personally discouraged,” said Corker, who has been mentioned as a potential vice-presidential candidate.
But Trump may be acting more strategically than it looks, as is often the case. The GOP historically gets the benefit of the doubt from voters on national security issues, and so far, that has benefited Trump as much as any Republican. A Gallup poll last month (before Orlando) found that 50 per cent of voters think he’s better equipped than Hillary to deal with terrorism and national security. (Her number was 46 per cent.)
If Trump can turn the election into a referendum on whether Americans feel safe against terrorists, he may win. On the other hand, if the election becomes a referendum on whether voters will feel safe with Trump as president, he’s more likely to lose. It’s far too early to make predictions. All we know for sure from these initial skirmishes is that Trump doesn’t plan on “pivoting” to a more presidential persona — and that this is already the ugliest presidential campaign in modern memory.
— Los Angeles Times
Doyle McManus is a syndicated columnist.
