The president’s return to the roots of his political strategy is on full display as crises pile up ahead of the election.
His message was more strategic than symbolic: As President Donald Trump waved a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church this week, like an auctioneer brandishing a rare book, he signaled that in the five months remaining between now and Election Day he will be singularly focused on his core supporters — and whatever energizes them most.
The president’s brief appearance outside the historic chapel across from the White House on Monday, a move he later claimed “many religious leaders loved,” was an unmistakable sign — one of several this week — that Trump is defaulting to his most familiar strategy, where his every move is intended to excite or rile the GOP base. In the past 72 hours, he’s made back-to-back visits to religious sites, vowed to protect his supporters’ Second Amendment rights amid protests against police brutality and late-night violence — blaming the “lamestream media” for inciting those nationwide demonstrations — suggested mail-in voting is part of a Democratic scheme to rig the 2020 election and threatened to send active-duty military into America’s communities while declaring himself a “law and order president.”
“You know, they want to take your guns away,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday, boasting that gun sales have spiked “in the last three, four days” amid his own calls for law and order. “They want security and they want safety.”
The base-only strategy is a gamble for Trump, whose campaign spent much of the past year trying to build up good will with suburban swing voters — knowing their disapproval alone could cost him reelection. But the base is also his safe space. If all that matters to Trump is that his dedicated supporters turn out in November, he can replace rosy language about national unity with appeals to their worries — above the six-figure Covid-19 death count or the images of protesters being forcibly dispersed by police. Instead, he’s focusing on images of burning churches and badly beaten shop owners that he’s been quick to blame on “rioters, looters and anarchists.”
“He should be out there saying, ‘If another building burns, I’m going to send in the 101st Airborne,’” said a Republican close to the White House, who expressed concern that Trump “hasn’t been tough enough on reopening the economy or enforcing the rule of law for everyone.”
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As Trump faced criticism from corners of his base for what allies perceived as a lackluster response to rioting, polls also showed him losing ground with his religious supporters — including white evangelicals, a demographic far more likely to align with Trump than his challenger, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
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In his interview with Kilmeade, which came after White House officials denied Trump’s visit to St. John’s was merely a photo opportunity, the president seemed to confirm that he’d achieved his desired outcome: “Most religious leaders loved it. I heard Franklin Graham this morning thought it was great.”
But the visit was also emblematic of the troubles Trump could face as he targets his base with divisive language, partisan red meat and a strategic commingling of politics and religion.
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Trump’s inner circle is still debating whether a base-only strategy for the remainder of the election is a prudent approach, particularly as he struggles with suburban women and college-educated voters, many of whom turned away from the GOP in the 2018 midterm elections and have shown little desire to return to the party of Trump in recent polling.
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Still, there are some who think the president’s renewed focus on his base — and the tactics he’s employed to make supporters feel connected to him — is a much-needed course correction after months of trying to court voters with an anti-socialism message that has proved more difficult to pin to Biden than other Democratic candidates.
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It was that approach that Trump appeared to embrace in an interview with his former press secretary late Wednesday. Asked whether Americans need their president to provide comfort in this moment of chaos, Trump instead replied, “Right now, I think the nation needs law and order.”
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As Trump waved a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church this week, he signaled a return to his most familiar strategy, where his every move is intended to excite or rile the GOP base https://t.co/SNT9YMAGOO
— POLITICO (@politico) June 4, 2020
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