With Wisconsin unrest as backdrop, Republicans intensify law-and-order message

Speaking hours after Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin called in the National Guard to restore order to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a police officer shot a Black man this week, numerous Republicans led by Vice-President Mike Pence assailed Biden for what they claimed was his tolerance of the vandalism that has grown out of racial justice protests, asserting that the country would not be safe with him as president.

“Last week, Joe Biden didn’t say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country,” said Pence, standing before an array of American flags at Fort McHenry in Baltimore and vowing: “We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color.”

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a strong supporter of the president, said that places like Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and other cities run by Democrats were being “overrun by violent mobs.” She likened the violence to the lead-up of the Civil War and asserted that people “are left to fend for themselves.”

Noem invoked a young Abraham Lincoln, claiming he had been “alarmed by the disregard for the rule of law throughout the country.”

“He was concerned for the people that had seen their property destroyed, their families attacked, and their lives threatened or even taken away,” she said, adding “Sound familiar?”

The intense focus on the rioting amounted to an acknowledgment by Republicans that they must reframe the election to make urban unrest the central theme and shift attention away from the deaths and illnesses of millions of people from the coronavirus.

Pence, the head of the government’s coronavirus task force, depicted Trump as a heroic leader in the crisis and cast the federal response as a success, even as the U.S. death toll approached 180,000 this week. Skirting the most complex and trying issues of the pandemic, Pence, calling America “a nation of miracles,” teased the prospect of a vaccine in the coming months and praised Trump for what he called “the greatest national mobilization since World War II.”

Still, Pence was the first speaker over three nights to fully grapple with the devastating effect of the virus. He conceded the nation was enduring “a time of testing,” alluded to a “fog of challenging times” and even repurposed Trump’s slogan to acknowledge the country’s trial. “We will make America great again - again,” he said.

Pence’s sombre language about the pandemic was quickly overtaken by images of him, his wife and the president and first lady shaking hands along a crowded rope line at the fort, with neither the two couples nor any of their supporters wearing masks.

A consistent feature of the speeches by close Trump associates was the implication that the president was a different and more sympathetic character in private than he appeared to be in public. Casting himself as a unique authority on Trump’s persona, Pence told viewers that he had “seen him when the cameras are off” and that he believed Trump was a man of principle.

Attacks on Biden

The third night of the GOP’s convention was yet another swerve in its approach: A bitterly negative kickoff night Monday gave way Tuesday to a soft-focus variety show that used the powers of Trump’s office to stage various events aimed at humanising the president. From the opening hour of the convention Wednesday, the evening appeared to be something of a synthesis of the two previous nights, with a dark message of warning conveyed largely by women and a few young people.

The jagged course of the Republican message this week has yielded myriad personal attacks on Biden and much praise for Trump, but there has been a scattershot dimension to the whole affair. Speakers have alternated between casting Trump as an iron-fisted champion of law and order and as a kindly and merciful friend to offenders; they have similarly veered between depicting Biden as a hardhearted proponent of mass incarceration and as an ally of rioters and criminals.

On Wednesday, an evening of stark warnings about incipient social chaos preceded Pence’s chiding of Biden for having described the Trump era as a “season of darkness” and arguing the country deserved an optimistic leader.

The criticism of Biden, the former vice-president, has been harsh. Republicans have mocked his faith; attacked his family and personal ethics; derided his long service in Washington; cast him as a creature of the past; and criticized his cautious campaign style and his penchant for verbal miscues, including clumsy remarks about race for which Biden has apologized. The most consistent strain of criticism has been about Biden’s alliance with the left wing of the Democratic Party, but even that has not amounted to the kind of intensely concentrated attack that Republicans carried out against Hillary Clinton four years ago.

For Pence, the appearance in Baltimore represented a rare opportunity for the self-effacing vice president to take the political foreground and perhaps to make an implicit argument that Republicans should embrace him as an heir to Trump. He has already been taking quiet steps to broaden his political circle, including holding luncheons with political consultants at the Trump Hotel and the Naval Observatory, ahead of an anticipated 2024 campaign.

Pence faced a complicated but hardly unfamiliar balancing act in his appearance: He has been called upon frequently to navigate the relationship between a divisive president with few close ties to the traditional Republican Party and parts of the conservative coalition that have periodically shown unease about Trump’s approach to politics.

Neither Pence nor other speakers acknowledged any regrets about the coronavirus response, let alone any misgivings about Trump’s role. The president was depicted as a tower of strength.