Consider This from NPR - 2016 On Loop: GOP Targets White Voters Amid Police Shootings, Protests

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Donald Trump told the Republican National Convention: "The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon — and I mean very soon — come to an end." That was in 2016. Today the president and his party are reprising a similar pitch to voters, as police shootings and the protests that follow them continue. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe reports on how the president's 'law and order' message has changed over time. And Evan Osnos of The New Yorker explains why some white voters are still sticking with the GOP. He wrote about that in his recent piece, "How Greenwich Republicans Learned To Love Trump."Find and support your local public radio station.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Here's what Donald Trump said at the Republican National Convention. Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally. Some have even been its victims. Thing is, this was not at this week's Republican National Convention. This was at the convention in 2016, before Trump was elected president. I have a message for all of you.

The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. His message back then was basically this. If you are scared of what you see on TV or even in your own city, Donald Trump will keep you safe. Beginning on January 20th of 2017, safety will be restored. Coming up this year, one thing the convention has shown us so far is that the president is sticking with that same pitch, the one that got him to the White House in the first place. Question is, will it work? This is Consider This from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers.

It's Wednesday, August 26th. podcast, train remotely, share meetings in town halls, and improve employee communication. Start your free 30-day trial at theletterustudio.com. Okay, let's just stay in 2016 for a bit. Two weeks before candidate Donald Trump gave that convention speech in July 2016, two Black men were killed by police within a day of each other. Philando Castile, outside Minneapolis, was shot in his car while his fiancée livestreamed the whole thing from the passenger seat. And Alton Sterling was shot outside a Baton Rouge convenience store. Two officers were filmed holding him down on the ground. And now, this week, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot by police. He survived. He's still in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down.

People in Kenosha have been protesting his shooting for the past several nights. Now we have to turn to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Then last night during protests, three people were shot and two of them died. Today, a white 17-year-old named Kyle Rittenhouse was arrested for first-degree intentional homicide. His Facebook page reportedly featured pro-police images. We turn now to that third night of violent protests. It turned deadly in Kenosha, Wisconsin last night. Despite the curfew, protesters took to the streets and clashing with officers. Shots rang out during protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake by police.

And now, just like four years ago, these killings by police and the protests that follow are part of the Republican Party's pitch. It seems as if the Democrats no longer view the government's job as protecting honest citizens from criminals, but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens. That's Mark McCloskey, who, along with his wife Patricia, was a featured speaker at the RNC this week. You might remember this couple, or at least pictures of them, waving guns at protesters who marched past their house in St. Louis this summer. What you saw happen to us could just as easily happen to any of you

who are watching from quiet neighborhoods around our country. We should say both of them face felony weapons charges. So make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats' America. She went on to repeat another talking point, that Democrats want to abolish suburbs, which is not true. Another false talking point at the RNC from the president's son, Eric, and others, is that Democratic nominee Joe Biden would defund the police.

Defund the police and take away your cherished Second Amendment. But Biden has repeatedly rejected the idea of defunding the police. The Senate's only Black Republican, Tim Scott, did make a passing mention of Black people killed by police. From a global pandemic to the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, 2020 has tested our nation in ways we haven't seen for decades. And while Scott says he does support some police reforms, nothing like that is in the official platform of the Republican Party this year.

That's because this year, the Republican Party doesn't have an official platform. Instead, it just put out a statement, basically saying we support President Trump. For the president and his party, this idea of law and order is not new. As we look at America, we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. We hear sirens in the night. When Richard Nixon accepted the Republican nomination in 1968, he ran with a similar message. One difference between now and then is that in 1968, 90% of voters were white. In 2020, that number is projected to be just 66%. And in 14 of 16 key battleground states, the number of whites without a college degree,

Trump's strongest demographic, will be smaller than in 2016. NPR's Ayesha Roscoe took a look at how Trump has talked about crime over the decades, but hasn't overseen many policy changes. And how his message is actually about race. This summer, as cities dealt with unrest and protests against police brutality, the message was impossible to escape. The Democrat Party has gone so far left. They don't care about law and order. Bring law and order back to our cities, back to our country.

Because people want law and order. We are for justice, but we're about law and order. Bring law and order back to our cities, back to our country. Because people want law and order. We are for justice, but we're for law and order. It's a rallying cry for a mostly white audience, and Trump is betting that it will help get him reelected. NPR examined the way Trump has talked about law and order with the help of Factbase, a website that compiles all of his public statements. It started back in 1989. Trump took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty against five black and brown boys accused of attacking a woman in Central Park. They were later exonerated. During his first run for office, Trump shifted his law and order message. He blamed illegal immigration for surges in crime, even though studies show that's not true.

You know, when you look at Ferguson and you look at St. Louis like the other night and you look at, let's say, Baltimore and Chicago, the gangs, you know, many of these gang members are illegal and they're tough dudes. They'll be out of there so fast your head will spin. Today, his law and order message is all about looting in cities run by Democrats. Quentin Lucas, mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, says Trump's message is clear to him. It's playing on fear of Black people, on Black leadership, on Democratic leadership. It's embarrassing. It's awful. Lucas is a Black Democrat.

The Trump administration recently sent federal agents to Kansas City to combat a spike in crime that included the shooting death of a four-year-old boy. Lucas feels like it's a short-term, politically motivated move when what's needed is long-term cooperation. Long-term solutions kind of like what Trump talked about back at the last Republican convention. The first task for our new administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens our communities. Tracy Siska says that would mean dealing with the actual root causes of violence in cities, like the lack of services and opportunities. He's the head of the Chicago Justice Project, which pushes for database solutions to violence. That hasn't happened.

So it's completely rebuilding that social fabric in those communities is the start. Everyone says in Chicago and around the community, we're not going to arrest our way out of it. And then all they do is try to arrest their way out of it. Now Trump talks less about fixing the cities and more about protecting the suburbs. If you want a vision of your life under Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins in Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago, and imagine the mayhem coming to your town and every single town in America. Mayor Lucas says the point remains the same.

But if you can scare the hell out of people, oh my gosh, you get attention, you get energy, you get understanding, and sadly, you get votes. Right now, polls show Trump behind in the suburbs. So it's not clear that the law and order message will work this time around. NPR's Aisha Roscoe. The Pew Research Center recently asked Republican voters what their top issues are this year. And violent crime was actually number two. Number one was the economy. That's exactly what Evan Osnos of The New Yorker found when he wrote about the wealthy suburban town of Greenwich, Connecticut. He talked about it with my colleague Mary Louise Kelly. You were reporting from a very specific place, from Greenwich, Connecticut.

Do we know how representative that is? Are there comparable communities of wealthy, elite Republicans backing Trump in different corners all over the U.S.? There are. We know that on the basis partly of what the typical Trump voter looks like on paper, in data. They are wealthier than we sometimes imagine. They are not all in places that we sometimes assume. They are, in fact, on the coasts. They are in wealthy communities from Southern California all the way to New England. They have stayed with him partly because of their perception that his vision of the economy is what they want. That's been the tie that binds them together. And now that the economy is really struggling, it becomes a much harder sale for him.

You've mentioned the economy a few times. Is that the single biggest issue that has attracted these voters to Trump and is keeping them on his side? It's a big issue. I think a more complete answer is there is an element of this that there are people who are very uneasy about racial politics in this country. And that's not something that they like to talk about. But the reality is some of them are uneasy about the idea that this country is becoming more

diverse. And they often will answer the question in economic terms. But if you have a longer conversation, you hear them say that they wish that immigrants were assimilating. All of these are often, they're ways that people talk about something in an indirect fashion. You know, Mary Louise, it's kind of a, it's a hard one to talk to people about casually, because what you're essentially asking somebody is, are you uncomfortable with the country becoming more diverse? And intellectually, often people will say, no, of course, I'm not uncomfortable with it. But then when it comes to their voting behavior, we see that there are hesitations, that they are uncomfortable with it. And Donald Trump has

figured out how to speak that language and it has worked for him. Did you meet anybody reporting this story who really surprised you? Yeah, there was one person in particular who is the head of the finance board in Greenwich. And he's a Republican who supports Donald Trump. It's a very powerful position. He's the person who decides how money is given out to things like special education in the schools and snow plowing and all the kind of day-to-day services. And I asked him, I said, does it bother you in the end, the way he talks about women, the way he talks about immigrants? What he said to me was, look, I care about the 60,000 people who live in my town. That's what I care about. And I said, but isn't

there a larger responsibility here just as a citizen? And he said, look, I can't worry about the things outside of that. I'm paraphrasing there. But that point was very striking to me because my imagination, in a sense, my sense of what that Prescott-Bush Republican Party once was, was, look, we may not agree with Democrats on much, but we fundamentally imagine that our responsibility as people in office and as citizens is to all Americans. And I got the sense that there is a narrower definition that has taken hold for some people of what it means to have a responsibility to others. And that really struck me.

Evan Osnos of The New Yorker talking to Mary Louise Kelly. Additional reporting in this episode from our colleagues at All Things Considered. For more news, you can download the NPR One app or listen to your local public radio station. Supporting that station makes this podcast possible. I'm Kelly McEvers. We will be back with more tomorrow. With civil unrest, the pandemic and the economic crisis, you want to know what's happening right when you wake up. And that's why there is Up First, the news you need in about 10 minutes from NPR News. Listen every day.