Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus Could Cost Him Presidency

[bluewater]

With the infection rate exploding and the economy in collapse, Donald Trump has failed spectacularly as a crisis manager. It would probably take a massive shock for him to get re-elected, but it appears he’s trying to make that happen, too.

An American president setting off a war somewhere in the world to win an election he thinks is already lost - it’s a script familiar to moviegoers. But an American president who threatens to wage war on American cities to turn an election campaign around? That’s unheard of.

At least it was until now.

Amidst the clouds of tear gas, anonymous federal police in battle gear throw stun grenades into a crowd, arresting protesters in the streets, locking them up without warrants. The videos showing the deployment of militarized troops in the United States look like scenes from the combat video game "Call of Duty.” But they’re real.

Donald Trump has deployed the federal troops from his Department of Homeland Security as a kind of presidential militia in Portland on the West Coast, where they have been using brute force against Black Lives Matter supporters who have been protesting in the city for weeks. The heavily armed security force is usually reserved for things like counter-terrorism operations or going up against drug smugglers. They have no insignias and their vehicles have no license plates.
...

The president, who is lagging far behind challenger Joe Biden of the Democratic Party in virtually all polls, is doing something that none of his predecessors has done: He’s invading American cities. "We’ll do something,” Trump said. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore, he said, are ruled by "liberal Democrats,” by the "radical left.” He argued that if Biden wins the presidency, the same would happen in the rest of the country. "The whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.”

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-s-handling-of-the-coronavirus-could-cost-him-the-presidency-a-341ffd75-5aba-46c9-983a-d063178512dd

The view of America from Der Spiegel in Germany.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Der Spiegel is well named, it seems. nt

[secondwind]

2. Change COULD to SHOULD. Harrumph

[GeorgeGist]

3. Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus Should Cost Him Presidency

there fixed it.