Convention redemption for Trump?
Last week’s terrorist attack in Nice, after similar tragedies in Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, Orlando and Istanbul, made two things painfully clear. Western societies, including the United States, have failed to blunt the growing threat of Islamist terrorism. And that means the 2016 presidential campaign will be fought under a shadow of fear. There will be more attacks between now and November; the only questions are when and where.
Voters who began the year looking for a leader who could raise median incomes are now searching for someone who can keep their families safe. And the two major candidates are offering starkly different approaches – two different brands of toughness: hot and cool, outraged and wonky.
Donald Trump, with his visceral sense of the nation’s mood, has bluntly voiced voters’ anger and fear.
“If we don’t get tough, we’re not going to have our country anymore,” he said after a New York-born Afghan American shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in June.
Trump has proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, restoring waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse” in interrogations.
On Thursday he warned that allowing Muslim refugees into the United States “could be the great Trojan horse of all time.”
“We have no idea . who they are,” he said. “They have no paperwork.” (That claim is utterly false; most refugee applicants wait at least 18 months while they are investigated.)
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE BAN
As many national security experts have pointed out, Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims would be counterproductive; it would alienate millions of people the United States wants to enlist in the war against Islamic State. It may even be a political loser for Trump. Although most Republicans agree with the proposed ban, most independents – voters he presumably needs in the general election – do not.
Still, Trump’s white-hot rhetoric reinforces his image as a tough guy who’s willing to do whatever it takes.
Hillary Clinton, with her decades of experience as a policy wonk, is sounding a tough note, too.
“This is a war against these terrorist groups, the radical jihadist groups. It’s a different kind of war,” she said last week. “We need to be smart about how we wage it, but we have to be determined that we’re going to win it.”
If he chooses, Trump can use the Republican National Convention to look more presidential, more deliberative, and readier to lead.
But her proposals are often cautiously hedged and wrapped in national security jargon.
She’s called for “skillful diplomacy,” for “a new look at our visa programs,” for “building up a global counterterrorism infrastructure.”
Clinton has proposed, essentially, to maintain President Obama’s current strategy against Islamic State, but to do more and faster: more airstrikes, an “intelligence surge” and new measures to disrupt terrorists’ social media networks. It’s worth remembering that she’s often been more hawkish than Obama.
Now Trump has a golden opportunity to change the tone of his campaign for good: The nominating convention in Cleveland, at which he’ll be center stage.
If he chooses, he can use the event to look more presidential, more deliberative, and readier to lead, erasing some of the stature gap, the temperament gap, the qualified-to-be-president gap that has kept him behind Clinton for most of the year.
There’s at least one good reason, then, to keep an eye on the convention: We’ll be able to tell whether Trump is trying to evolve by how he chooses to talk about terrorism.
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.