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Rolando Morales is the kind of voter that President Donald Trump is desperate to win. A 41-year-old stay-at-home dad in Racine, Wis., Morales voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and his wife and her family are solid Democrats. But hes alarmed by the violence that erupted in nearby Kenosha after police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back on Aug. 23.

Before Kenosha, I would have said I would never vote for Trump, says Morales, gripping a sandwich outside a Jimmy Johns. Now, its like: Maybe. I saw the city get burned down.

In the aftermath, Trump visited the city to pose in front of burned buildings, denouncing the anti-police and anti-American riots. But his true audience was not necessarily the people of Kenosha: it was the white suburban voters who could make or break his chances at re-election.

A peaceful gathering early Tuesday near the site where Jacob Blake was shot by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 1, 2020.

Patience Zalanga for TIME

Trump won the presidency in large part due to his success in suburban battlegrounds. In 2012, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney fought to a near-draw across suburban areas; in 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the suburbs by 5 points. But since then, Trumps support among suburban voters has dipped. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats made huge inroads in the suburbs, winning districts in red states like Kansas and Oklahoma. According to a New York Times/Siena poll in June, Biden led Trump by 16 points in the suburbs, especially among voters with a four-year college degree. Whether or not the President gets a second term hinges on winning these voters back.

This fall, its entirely possible that a surge in Democratic votes in suburban Wisconsin tips the state and the Electoral College, says Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

Which is why the Trump campaign is doing everything it can to scare suburban voters into sticking with him. In recent weeks the dominant theme of his campaign has been stoking fear of unrest and promising law & order to anxious white suburbanites. The Republican National Convention highlighted the story of a white St. Louis couple who pointed their guns at Black Lives Matter protesters passing by their home. In one tweet directed at the Suburban Housewives of America, Trump said Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream; I will protect it! In case the message wasnt clear, his campaign sent out a text yesterday that read: ANTIFA THUGS WILL RUIN THE SUBURBS!

Protestors clash outside a county courthouse after the President departs Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 1, 2020.

Patience Zalanga for TIME

Kenosha County is a case study of whether this message can work. Its full of suburbs and exurbs surrounding the main city, Kenosha, that was blighted after Blakes shooting. Most of the windows downtown are boarded up and tagged with murals and graffiti, and the smell of smoke from burned buildings still hung in the air days after the violence subsided. The county went for Obama by 12 points in 2012 before Trump erased that deficit and barely eked out a win there in 2016; two years later, Democratic Governor Tony Evers won it by 4 points.

So is Trumps strategy working? Polls paint a murky picture, and it varies by state. Take Pennsylvania: One Monmouth poll in early September showed the race tightening in Trumps favor in swing and suburban districts in Pennsylvania, while a recent NBC/Marist poll showed Biden leading Trump by nearly 20 points among suburban voters there. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 80% of Americans were very or somewhat concerned with the protests, but not in a way that benefited the President: 55% said that Trumps comments about the protests had made the situation worse, while 59% said Biden would do a better job handling the protests and 56% said Biden would do a better job keeping me and my family safe.

And on the ground, Trumps bet on fear-mongering seems to have met limited success. In dozens of interviews in Kenosha and its surrounding suburbs in recent days, nearly every voter I spoke with agreed that the violent protests were unacceptable. Yet many suburban voters blamed Trump for inciting racial conflict.

Boarded-up windows on businesses let patrons know they are still open in Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 2, 2020.

Patience Zalanga for TIME

People here might be concerned about law and order, but they dont want a President whos stoking the fire; they dont want him to pour on kerosene, says Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative radio host in Wisconsin and an anti-Trump Republican who is now editor-at-large of The Bulwark. These really crude race based-appeals just dont seem like theyre gonna resonate among suburban Wisconsin voters this year.

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Meanwhile, Bidens denunciation of the violence and his refusal to adopt Black Lives Matters demands to defund the police have made it harder to paint him as soft on crime. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting, he said in an August 31 speech in the aftermath of Blakes shooting, before adding: Do I look to you like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really? (The Trump campaign has to get its story straight: before they were attacking Biden as soft on crime, they were attacking him as too tough on crime, slamming him as the architect of mass incarceration.)

But like nearly everything in Trumps America, both Democrats and Republicans in Kenosha and the surrounding areas saw what they wanted to see in the shooting of Blake and the subsequent racial-justice protests. For Trump supporters, it reinforced the need for law and order; for Biden supporters, the need for new policing policy and national healing. Trump thought it would terrify white voters into coming back to his base; Biden thought it was inspire suburban voters to embrace his message of unity. It turned out to be just another Rorschach test for a tribal nation.

A young boy gets his haircut at the community gathering hosted by Jacob Blakes family in Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 1, 2020.

Patience Zalanga for TIME

Supporters of the President said they credited him with ending the violence and voiced skepticism of the Black Lives Matter movement. Why should Black lives matter any more than anybody elses? says JoAnn Clickner, 85, a Trump supporter in nearby Racine. Miss Black America and Black this and Black thatjust obey the law and do what youre supposed to do. Clickner says she supports the President because we need a leader, a ruler who can handle things.

Mayhem and anarchy has been going on, says Rhonda Dutton, a 61-year old retired carpenter who supports the President. Its very upsetting to see our town be destroyed for something that could have been easily avoided if you had just obeyed commands.

But dismay at the damage done by protesters doesnt necessarily translate into support for Trump. I cried when I walked through downtown. I think the President is inciting a lot of this racist talk, says Carole Mills, 75, a retired teacher, on her way out of a Dollar Tree in Kenosha. Theres a lot of people who dont like either one, but theyd prefer Biden over Trump.

A street vendor selling T-shirts observes a crowd of protesters marching near the county courthouse in Kenosha, Wis., on Sept. 1, 2020.

Patience Zalanga for TIME

The destruction of our beautiful old buildings has been disheartening, adds Toni Detert, 63, a retired retail manager in Kenosha. Still, she says, Trumps visit was a political ploy, and she plans to vote for Biden.

In fact, Rolando Morales appeared to be a rare specimen in these parts: the unlikely voter whose views may have been swayed by the events of the last few weeks. In more than 50 interviews, he was one of the only people who said he was considering changing his vote because of the events in Kenosha. The only thing about Trump thats positive is law and order. We need more of that, he says.

Yet when pressed, it seemed like Morales was starting to make up his mind. Morales says he wants a President whos gonna pull humanity together. In the end, he says, Biden will probably get his vote.

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Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.

Original post:
Kenosha Is a Test Of Donald Trump's 'Law-and-Order' Message. It Doesn't Seem to Be Working. - TIME

I dont like being alone in Washington, he said, describing shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long. He then ran through a series of conspiracy theories, culminating in a prediction that Mr. Trump will win re-election but his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., will refuse to concede.

And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin, he said. The drills that youve seen are nothing. He added: If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because its going to be hard to get.

Mr. Caputos installation at the agency was a White House move to assert greater control over Alex M. Azar II, who has been Mr. Trumps secretary of health and human services since 2018. His job is to coordinate the messaging of an 80,000-person department that functions as the center of the American public health bureaucracy and includes the Food and Drug Administration, the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, which lead the governments pandemic response.

Mr. Caputo boasted in his Facebook talk that the president had personally put him in charge of a $250 million public service advertising campaign intended to help America to get back to normal.

Despite the criticism of his teams interference with C.D.C., Mr. Caputo said he expected to remain in his post because Mr. Trump supported him. Im not going anywhere, he said. I swear to God, as God is my witness, I am not stopping.

His Facebook presentation comes as Mr. Trump has increasingly singled out federal government scientists as targets, complaining without evidence that they were deliberately trying to subvert his administrations efforts to fight the pandemic for their own political reasons.

Mr. Caputo echoed those sentiments, saying scientists deep in the bowels of the C.D.C. have given up science and become political animals.

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Trump Health Aide Falsely Alleges Conspiracies and Warns of Armed Revolt - The New York Times

Former FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who was at the center of the investigation into Donald Trump's ties to Russia, said he continues to believe that the president "is compromised by the Russians."

"They hold leverage over him that makes him incapable of placing the national interest, the national security, ahead of his own," Strzok said Sunday in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"One of the largest ways that foreign governments gain leverage certainly in the case of the president is through financial entanglements," Strzok said. "And I think when you take a look at the Trump financial enterprise, particularly its relationship with Russian monies and potentially those related to organized crime and other elements, that those interactions have placed them in a position where the Russians have leverage over him and are able to influence his actions."

Strzok is the author behind "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump," which came out last week.

He was critical to the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, led by former special counsel Robert Mueller. But Strzok was removed from this role in 2018 after government officials uncovered anti-Trump text messages he sent to a colleague.

There's concern that Russia might also interfere in this year's election between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

An investigation from last month revealed that the Trump administration tried to coerce officials working in intelligence agencies to strike part of a classified report that determined Russia was working on rigging the upcoming November election in Trump's favor.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. The Justice Department declined to comment.

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Former FBI agent says it's 'clear' that 'Donald Trump is compromised by the Russians' - Business Insider - Business Insider

To the Editor:

President Kennedy once said "Peace is our profession." And peace being a daily process must remain so.

I encourage peace, especially between us Americans. But also between all nations.

Hearing President Donald Trump being nominated for 2021 Noble Peace Prize in his efforts in the Israel-United Arab Emirates was great to hear and my hopes he'll achieve it.

Now with all the false narratives about him saying awful things about our brave who gave their last full measure of devotion to our freedoms is an example of somes intention to spread lies.

But there's no one patriotic more than Donald Trump, who like Abraham Lincoln is attacked viciously by those who don't simply like him.

President Trump loves our brave. Honors the past and salutes those today. Joe Biden, on the other hand, can't even remember the lines in the Declaration of Independence.

And that's sad because I think he has some mental health issues and then they team him with Kamala Harris, whom I think she's out of her mind as well.

But, regardless, my hope is for a peaceful election and respect for one another. America is a good country.

And we all must remember America is an ideal not an establishment.

We fight against tyranny and viruses together. And work toward peace on earth. Which JFK said must always be our goal. May God give us the spirit to do so. And pray for all our leaders and President Trump that 2020, which started as a pandemic, may end with the spirit of peace and goodwill.

And may He bless all the American people. God bless America.

Bob DeLacy Jr

Marengo

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Letter: Donald Trump the patriot - Northwest Herald

After two weeks of battling Covid-19 thank you, dear readers, for all the good wishes I can report that the droning discomfort has passed, some energy has returned, I can taste again, and, for better or worse, I am recovering my personality from whoever hijacked it. I can also certify that the virus is a devilish addition to life on earth. Do not mess with it.

My memory is also returning, a mixed blessing as it turns to familiar obsessions, like Trumps ego.

You know that ego could not resist 18 interviews with Bob Woodward, just as you know that he spent some of those interviews detailing his lies to the American people about the virus (he preferred to always play it down), just as you know that he said in 2018 that the Aisne-Marne American cemetery in France he declined to visit was filled with losers, just as you know that in 2017 he said Haitians all have AIDS and Nigerian immigrants wouldnt ever go back to their huts.

You know because the presidents personality is consistent: a mix of coward, racist, liar, con artist, narcissist, grifter, and blowhard, with uncanny antennae for the worst instincts of humanity, and for how to use the media to channel insecurity and hatred into a mass political movement galvanized by his fiendish energy.

Yes, you just know with Trump. You know he insisted that Sean Spicer say his inauguration was the largest audience to ever witness the ceremony, and that the former senior White House counselor Kellyanne Conway used the Trump playbook when she said the statement was not false but just alternative facts, and that when Trump started insisting (falsely) that there had been voter fraud in the election he had won, he was laying the groundwork for real voter suppression in November 2020, and that downplaying the virus was about getting the Dow to 30,000 so he would not suffer an impossible defeat in the coming election.

Alternative facts have been the diet of Americans for 44 months now. No democracy, built on accountability and law, can survive such an onslaught indefinitely. That is why Joe Bidens most effective slogan is a simple one: You deserve a president who tells you the truth.

Biden has a fight on his hands. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Militarized police confront angry mobs. Insecurity is rampant, as is racial tension. A plague stalks the land. These are near perfect conditions for a proto-fascist like Trump who seeks a disoriented populace.

You just know, and the knowledge is that cloying glob of sludge that can never quite be washed off in the Trump era, however hard you scrub. It permeates existence.

You know he doesnt believe climate change is a threat, that he has done his best to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency, that he does not believe in science, that he thought disinfectant might knock out the virus in a minute, that he has hobbled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that he couldnt care less about transgender people, that he loathes immigrants he has described as animals, and that he authorized the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their parents at the border. You know that in textbook totalitarian fashion, he calls a free press the enemy of the American people.

Yes, you know, and you also know that Trump wants you to know all this so well, and so relentlessly, that you dont care. He has always gotten away with it. He has no reason to believe he will not continue to bat 1.000.

The fact is, were here, and theyre not, he taunted his opponents at the White House last month. It is a fact, alterable only through an immense summoning of American character and will.

You know Trump thought there were very fine people on both sides at the 2017 neo-Nazi Charlottesville rally, and that he thinks any Jew who votes for a Democrat shows great disloyalty, and that he winks daily at millions of Americans who believe he is their savior from a takeover by Black and brown people, Jewish finance, cosmopolitans, and leftist radicals. You know Trump is very much behind President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt because he has yet to meet a dictator he does not dream of emulating. You know Trump must be compromised with President Vladimir Putin to the point of ignoring Russian bounties on American troops in Afghanistan.

American deaths, as this years virus death toll has shown, are a matter of indifference to a president who believes empathy, like patriotic sacrifice, is for suckers.

Its important not just to know, to be aware, but to remember. Its hard to remember. Its like looking for the way out of a labyrinth in the mist.

Its important to remember that Trump believes he has done more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln and that he claims he will preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions even as he is asking the Supreme Court to destroy Obamacare. Because Trump is delusional and a world already on the brink of an armed Chinese-American confrontation may not survive a second Trump term without disaster. Nor will the oldest democracy on earth.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Remembering the Presidency of Donald Trump - The New York Times