Solving racial injustice on the streets could end up helping to re-elect Trump

Recently, pollsters have pointed out something I found interesting. Apparently, and perhaps not surprisingly, in many elections there is a cohort of voters who don’t like either candidate. The pollsters then push them to say who they would vote for if they had no other choice. In the 2016, that group said they would probably vote for Trump. In 2020, that same cohort is saying that they would probably vote for Biden. It’s a predictor of voters who make last-minute calls and who do not otherwise show up in poll results.

It is this group of voters who have me worried today when I see looting on America’s streets, and when I see statues and monuments torn down or defaced. Obviously, this has also occurred to President Trump since he is now making it the disgusting centerpiece of his failing re-election campaign. We can hope it won’t work, but it has me concerned.

We can take comfort that polls show a broad swath of Americans strongly support efforts to reform policing and other goals of equality in the Black Lives Matter movement. But will those voters hold that position if, during the next few months, they see violence on the streets of the United States? We know they will be getting a daily dose of just that 24/7 on Fox News.

Biden’s strategy to date has been to stay out of the national spotlight except for carefully choreographed moments when he appears to throw a jab at Trump or just utter a unifying presidential-like statement that contrasts so dramatically with Trump’s divisive Twitter moments. That seems to be working quite well for Biden, and many of the campaign pros approve of his basement strategy.

What Biden cannot control from his basement is the recent spate of protests and riots following the deaths of people of color at the hands of police. There is understandable anger and frustration among Americans who believe we should have made considerably more progress in race relations and that there should be tougher consequences for those who target, injure or kill people of color in the supposed pursuit of justice.

George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis reverberated around the globe, and here in the United States it has set off a reexamination of race in America, as statues of historical figures have been taken down. It set in motion a wave of mostly peaceful protests in many cities across the country, with a diverse group of protesters joining the movement. This is their moment, and no one can or should tell them to stop peaceful protests to please Donald J. Trump and his ilk.

Without question, Americans have turned a blind eye to Confederate symbols of history of slavery and racism. The words of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution rang hollow over the years for too many Americans who never made it to the starting line in the race for life and career. Our Founding Fathers “talked the talk” but did not “walk the walk” as slave owners themselves, and we must find a way to come to terms with an American history much more complex than the classroom versions we learned in school.

How we go about that at this critical moment in our history may be the key to whether America rejects the picture Trump paints of our divided nation or whether we return to a politics of decency that Joe Biden represents.

It’s my profound hope that those who seek fundamental changes in the laws, governmental actions and culture of our great nation will recognize what it will take to defeat Donald Trump in November — a coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents who believe it’s time to heal our great nation. It is my fear that protests that result in mob action are not viewed as “healing,” thus threatening the makeup of that coalition, turning some of those Trump doubters back to him in the upcoming election. That cannot happen if the goal is to move to a post-Trump America.

And let’s reflect for a moment on what will happen to this country if Trump wins a second term. The president of the United States has refused to do anything to unite our country at this troubled time. Quite the opposite. He is waging an incendiary campaign throwing fuel on the fire — on race relations, on immigration. As he seeks to tear apart what is an amazingly unified country on race issues, one can only imagine what chaos and backtracking on progress would look like in a Trump second term.

There is abundant hope that there will be significant changes in laws and behaviors in the months to come to realize the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, I can’t help but think that tearing down and defacing monuments, allowing stores in America’s major cities to be boarded up because of looting just a few months before the election as the nation struggles with a pandemic claiming thousands of lives and an economy on life support will get us there.

There is no solution that leaves statues of heroes of the Confederacy in place. Some cities such as Richmond have taken down Confederate statues — in Richmond it was of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a slave owner and commander of the Confederacy in the Civil War. Protesters played a key role in those removals, but the removal was accomplished by city or state governments, not by mobs.

I also worry when we conflate the sins and thus the statues of George Washington with that of Robert E. Lee. Let’s face it. When the president stokes the fires by supporting Confederate memorabilia, it’s pretty easy to disagree. The Civil War was fought over slavery, and those who defended it should not be exalted. But when we start removing or trying to tear down statues of Ulysses S. Grant or George Washington, for example, we are delving into layers of historical complexity that requires more conversation and examination. Such precipitous actions could also be seen by many, especially those swing voters, as an attempt to erase our history because we “don’t love our country.” That could result in four more years of Trump’s divisive culture wars when we surely would never be able to have that conversation and reconciliation.

This story was originally published July 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.