At this juncture, President Donald Trump's reelection ought to be a slam dunk. In perilous times, voters are skittish about changing horses in midstream. They have a visceral need to rally around their president. Trump has appealed to that instinct, but it hasn't worked. His disapproval rating is 54%, up 6 points from what pollsters reported in March.
Why? Perhaps because he didn't follow up on his proclamation of a war against the coronavirus with himself as the general. He threw away the opportunity to issue a patriotic call for Americans to enlist in that struggle by setting aside their differences and presenting a united front against the disease.
Trump might have been better advised to make a speech something like this:
"Good evening, my fellow Americans: With tens of thousands of Americans having been killed by this merciless enemy, far be it from me to paint a rosy picture of the future.
"A host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
"I'm heartened by the sight of ordinary people taking a leadership role: nurses, hospital orderlies and paramedics. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
"Let us not despair on a day when the death rolls reach a new high. Instead let us say: America has lost a battle, but America has not lost the war.
"Over the hard road of the past months, we have at times met obstacles and difficulties, divisions and disputes, indifference and callousness. That is now all past.
"The fact is that the country now has an organization in Washington built around men and women who are recognized experts in their own fields. I think the country knows that the people who are actually responsible in each and every one of these many fields are pulling together with a teamwork that has never before been excelled.
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
Let me own up to something: I didn't write those stirring words. I cribbed them from speeches of the Allied leaders of World War II.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French Gen. Charles De Gaulle used those purple passages to rally the support of their people during the bloody struggle with the Nazis. Additionally, one is from a speech Roosevelt made during the Great Depression. Some names have been changed to contemporary ones, and I supplied a couple of connecting sentences.
Besides preaching unity, Roosevelt and Churchill practiced it. Both brought into their administration members of the opposing party. Churchill, a Conservative, made Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, deputy prime minister.
Roosevelt, a Democrat, had Republican secretaries of war and the Navy, and he made Fiorello LaGuardia, New York's Republican mayor, director of the Office of Civil Defense during World War II.
Can anyone imagine Trump extending a hand of solidarity to a mayor of New York _ even during a national emergency?
"I'm not dealing with him; I'm dealing with the governor," Trump said after Mayor Bill De Blasio claimed New York wasn't getting a fair share of the federal government's aid during the pandemic.
That's not to say Trump has consistently given New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo good grades either. He tweeted: "Governor Cuomo should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining'."
When a group of governors questioned Trump's claim to the unique authority to lift the quarantines they had ordered, Trump replied:
"Tell the Democratic Governors that 'Mutiny on the Bounty' was one of my all time favorite movies to watch. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain."
Clearly he's not interested in following Roosevelt and Churchill's example. Instead of seeking strength in unity, he's doubling down on the divide and conquer strategy that won him the White House.
In 2016, he derided his opponent as Lyin' Hillary.
In 2020, he has called Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington a "snake" and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan "Half Whitmer."
He has tweeted: "Liberate Michigan" as well as Minnesota and Virginia _ as if having a governor committed to quarantine standards advocated by the federal government's scientific advisers was equivalent to being occupied by a foreign power.
He's betting that voters are still leery of rejecting an incumbent president in uncertain times. Given Trump's sliding polling numbers, that could be a risky wager.
But the dice are in his hand. So as Trump likes to say: "We'll see what happens."
