The situation in Portland and President Donald Trump's use of federal law enforcement officers in America's cities could cause problems for presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden's hopes for the White House if he doesn't take steps to prove that he will also take a decisive stance against violence in the nation's cities and that he will not be under the control of the far left in his party, according to an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday.
"No one believes that Joe Biden is a dangerous radical," says William A. Galston, who writes the publication's weekly Politics & Ideas column. "But the president and his advisers charge that Mr. Biden will be a tool of leftists because he is beholden to them and too befuddled to stand up to them. The former vice president needs to show that this is not the case."
After demonstrations broke out to protest the death of George Floyd, Trump first rolled out a law and order campaign that led Americans to believe police officers had been using too much force against suspects and discriminating against Black people.
But after large groups endorsed police reforms, and called for defunding police departments, Biden at first slammed that idea and called for showing the differences between peaceful protests and acts of violence.
However, with Portland, Trump opted to send federal enforcement personnel in the name of protecting federal property from acts of violence, but reports showed federal personnel had switched from defending federal installations to arresting people suspected of committing violent acts, with some saying they'd been arrested and thrown into unmarked vans.
Biden on July 21 said in a statement that the government has "the right and the duty" to protect federally owned property but then claimed Trump was using "egregious tactics” in brutal attacks on peaceful protesters.
But Biden, by not acknowledging acts like trying to set a federal courthouse on fire are being beyond peaceful protests, has left himself open to accusations of being soft on the violence, said Galston.
"Few Americans are in a revolutionary mood," while they are still fighting the continuing COVID-19 panic and economic downturn, said Galston and are open to a "reasonable counteroffer" but Biden may have trouble if they see him as denying the violence in Portland.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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