Today’s Republican Party has been intentionally built on decades of white resentment, culminating in the rise of Donald Trump on birtherism, anti-immigrant bigotry, and flirtations with overt white supremacy. But every so often, the Republicans who have been there every step of the way, reveling in whatever power racism can help them achieve, get worried that things have gone a little too far to benefit them from an electoral perspective. This is one of those moments.
As public support for Black Lives Matter surges in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and the resulting protests, Trump and his team haven’t let up on the overt racism and divisiveness, from the tear gas used to clear peaceful protesters to give Trump a photo op outside a church to Trump campaign adviser Mercedes Schlapp retweeting a video of a chainsaw-wielding man screaming the n-word at protesters before reversing herself and claiming she hadn’t watched the whole video. That has some Republicans worried.
The White House is publicly defending Trump’s stance (big shock there) as electorally wise, with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany trying to change the discussion: “Of course all black lives matter, but in terms of the movement, they define themselves as ‘defund the police’”—and bragging about the whopping 8% Trump got among Black voters in 2016. But, The Washington Post reports: “Inside the White House, the president and his aides are deliberating ways to more directly address the issue of race to help soothe tensions, while mitigating potential political damage in an election year.”
Trump’s inner circle has been mulling the plan of having him deliver a speech on race (officially, as opposed to through a stream of dog whistles), which, The Washington Post reports, “would focus on Trump administration policies that have helped create economic opportunities for black Americans, according to aides familiar with the deliberations.” That argument had not been getting much traction among Black voters before the coronavirus economic crisis and weeks of protest, but I guess that’s the argument they think they have.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, will attack former Vice President Joe Biden for wanting to defund the police, which he doesn't, and, based on partial successes in some cities, may not be the wildly unpopular idea the Trump campaign believes it to be in any case. All that Republican fear we’ve been hearing about for weeks isn’t going anywhere, and it doesn’t look like Trump has a strategy beyond more of the same, or an obviously insincere effort to con Black voters.