The president is enjoying watching his stormtroopers on TV so much that he's decided to expand the stormtrooper program.
President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr announced on Wednesday that the Justice Department will "immediately surge" federal law enforcement officers to Chicago and Albuquerque in an effort to combat violent crime.
This is being described as having a focus on crime rather than unrest, but it's obviously meant to be the same kind of hairy-chested entertainment that Trump voters have been enjoying in Fox News reports from Oregon.
But a new Quinnipiac poll suggests it's not working as intended.
July 22, 2020 - Texans Say 2 To 1 That Coronavirus Spread Is "Out Of Control," Governor's Ratings Drop In Quinnipiac University Texas Poll; Biden & Trump Locked In Tight Race
... In the race for the White House, 45 percent of voters support former Vice President Joe Biden, while 44 percent back President Trump. That compares to early June when the race was equally tight and voters backed Trump 44 percent to Biden's 43 percent. In today's survey, Democrats back Biden 94 - 3 percent, independents back Biden 51 - 32 percent and Republicans back Trump 89 - 6 percent.
Biden has gone from -1 to +1 in Texas -- a state that's increasingly purple, but is also full of self-aggrandizingly macho Republican voters. The poll was conducted July 16-20, after Trump's Portland operation had begun, yet the deployment didn't help Trump consolidate his base: 6% of Republicans said they were voting for Biden in a Quinnipiac poll of the state released June 3, and the number is still 6%, whereas Biden lost 5% of Democrats in the earlier poll and loses only 3% now. Biden got 45% of independents in the earlier poll and gets 51% now. Trump got 61% of white men in the earlier poll and doesn't get any more in this poll.
Maybe this will change -- in Trump's favor or against him -- when the stormtroopers go national, which seems inevitable. And maybe the deployment to states where Trump has little chance of victory is an act of misdirection, and the real intent of this is to deploy armed intimidators to Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other big cities in swing states just before the election, to tamp down the Democratic vote.
I imagine that's the attorney general's thinking. Trump's, however, appears to be that this will make people love him (which is the motive force for virtually everything he does). If so, he doesn't appear to be getting his wish.
Posted with permission from No More Mr. Nice Blog
