The Huge Snag in Trump’s Reelection Pitch
Donald Trump is betting his reelection on convincing most Americans that the “chaos president” can deliver order.
“Chaos president” is how former Florida Governor Jeb Bush described Trump in the final Republican presidential-primary debate of 2015. Bush’s argument against Trump’s erratic leadership style didn’t save his flagging campaign, but his coinage may have been the single most accurate forecast of Trump’s turbulent tenure. Trump’s presidency has been marked by constant turnover in personnel, hairpin turns in policy, angry feuds with politicians in both parties, perpetual Twitter wars, the disregard and disparaging of experts, a torrent of lies and misrepresentations, and the most open appeals to white racial resentment of any other national figure since George Wallace.
All that history looms over Trump as the coronavirus pandemic, the accompanying economic collapse, and nationwide protests and unrest over racial inequity have left millions of Americans uneasy. Trump is trying to overcome Joe Biden’s consistent lead in the polls by presenting himself as the leader to restore calm to the streets and normalcy to the economy. But the volatility that has infused each day of his
