Over the past few days...

By Amber Philips (TWP)

Over the past few days, President Trump has made one thing clear: He wants to crack down on the protests that have, in many cities, turned violent after dark. 
He has used language that sounded threatening (“when the looting starts, the shooting starts”), mused about “vicious dogs” being set on them, painted the protests as far-left extremists known as “antifa” and on Monday in a call with governors, urged state leaders to “dominate” the protests and said they look “weak” otherwise. He has focused more on that than on the motivation for the protests across the country: police brutality and racial injustice that they say led to the death George Floyd, after a white officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck. 
So why such a focus on getting tough? Is there a political benefit Trump sees to playing up that, rather than moving to unite and heal as past presidents have in moments of crisis? A few possibilities.
Trump sees these protests as a threat to him and wants to tamp down on them. There are protests directly in front of the White House. On Friday night, he was moved to a secret bunker, report my colleagues. But it also seems like he views these demonstrations through a partisan lens, that those protesting are more sympathetic to Democrats than to him. That was evidenced in a tweet this weekend when he suggested his supporters might come out and rally for him later that day as a counterprotest. Trump regularly lashes out at his critics in the political arena, and perhaps he’s doing that now. 
He can stoke a culture war about something other than coronavirus. Trump spent much of the month of May, when coronavirus deaths hit 100,000 and unemployment hit 40 million, tweeting about other things — from an actual fight with Twitter to baselessly accusing an MSNBC host of murder. He’s also seen his poll numbers relative to former vice president Joe Biden dip, as he gets low marks for his handling of the virus. Enter a racial conflict, which has pushed coronavirus down in the headlines. The more Trump can keep this in the news — and his conflict with protesters is big news — perhaps he thinks that’s better for him.
He won in 2016 with get-tough-on-crime policies. Even though Trump signed a criminal justice reform bill into law, he also campaigned on a “strongman persona” that worked for him, writes the Fix’s Eugene Scott.
Trump may also just reflexively be reacting to protests with a message and animus he doesn’t like. With a few exceptions — like the white nationalist-led protests in 2017 in Charlottesville and the recent protests to reopen businesses — Trump has been critical of protesters and dissent to the state. , President Trump has made one thing clear: He wants to crack down on the protests that have, in many cities, turned violent after dark.
He has used language that sounded threatening (“when the looting starts, the shooting starts”), mused about “vicious dogs” being set on them, painted the protests as far-left extremists known as “antifa” and on Monday in a call with governors, urged state leaders to “dominate” the protests and said they look “weak” otherwise. He has focused more on that than on the motivation for the protests across the country: police brutality and racial injustice that they say led to the death George Floyd, after a white officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck.
So why such a focus on getting tough? Is there a political benefit Trump sees to playing up that, rather than moving to unite and heal as past presidents have in moments of crisis? A few possibilities.
Trump sees these protests as a threat to him and wants to tamp down on them. There are protests directly in front of the White House. On Friday night, he was moved to a secret bunker, report my colleagues. But it also seems like he views these demonstrations through a partisan lens, that those protesting are more sympathetic to Democrats than to him. That was evidenced in a tweet this weekend when he suggested his supporters might come out and rally for him later that day as a counterprotest. Trump regularly lashes out at his critics in the political arena, and perhaps he’s doing that now.
He can stoke a culture war about something other than coronavirus. Trump spent much of the month of May, when coronavirus deaths hit 100,000 and unemployment hit 40 million, tweeting about other things — from an actual fight with Twitter to baselessly accusing an MSNBC host of murder. He’s also seen his poll numbers relative to former vice president Joe Biden dip, as he gets low marks for his handling of the virus. Enter a racial conflict, which has pushed coronavirus down in the headlines. The more Trump can keep this in the news — and his conflict with protesters is big news — perhaps he thinks that’s better for him.
He won in 2016 with get-tough-on-crime policies. Even though Trump signed a criminal justice reform bill into law, he also campaigned on a “strongman persona” that worked for him, writes the Fix’s Eugene Scott.
Trump may also just reflexively be reacting to protests with a message and animus he doesn’t like. With a few exceptions — like the white nationalist-led protests in 2017 in Charlottesville and the recent protests to reopen businesses — Trump has been critical of protesters and dissent to the state.