Post by the Scribe on Apr 19, 2020 21:51:30 GMT
A Key GOP Strategy: Blame China. But Trump Goes Off Message.
news.yahoo.com/key-gop-strategy-blame-china-153454763.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
The New York Times
Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman,The New York Times•April 19, 2020
WASHINGTON — The strategy could not be clearer: From the Republican lawmakers blanketing Fox News to new ads from President Donald Trump’s super PAC to the biting criticism on Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter feed, the GOP is attempting to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China.
With the death toll from the pandemic already surpassing 34,000 Americans and unemployment soaring to levels not seen since the Great Depression, Republicans increasingly believe that elevating China as an archenemy culpable for the spread of the virus, and harnessing America’s growing animosity toward Beijing, may be the best way to salvage a difficult election.
Republican senators locked in difficult races are preparing commercials condemning China. Conservatives with future presidential ambitions of their own, like Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, are competing to see who can talk tougher toward the country where the virus first emerged. Party officials are publicly and privately brandishing polling data in hopes Trump will confront Beijing.
Trump’s own campaign aides have endorsed the strategy, releasing an attack ad last week depicting Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, as soft on China. The ad relied heavily on images of people of Asian descent, including former Gov. Gary Locke of Washington, who is Chinese American, and it was widely viewed as fanning the flames of xenophobia.
“Trump has always been successful when he’s had a boogeyman and China is the perfect boogeyman,” said Chris LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist.
But there is a potential impediment to the GOP plan — the leader of the party himself.
Eager to continue trade talks, uneasy about further rattling the markets and hungry to protect his relationship with President Xi Jinping at a moment when the United States is relying on China’s manufacturers for lifesaving medical supplies, Trump has repeatedly muddied Republican efforts to fault China.
On Friday, however, he posited that China must have the most deaths from the coronavirus — the United States does — and later said, “I’m not happy with China.” He repeated the assertion Saturday, saying that China had many more deaths than it had reported, and that the virus “could have been stopped in China. Before it started.” But he continued to show deference to Xi, saying “I don’t want to embarrass countries that I like and leaders that I like, but you have to see some of these numbers.”
Despite the president’s diverging public statements, a central pillar of his campaign’s approach is to deflect anger over the human casualties and economic pain of the coronavirus onto an adversary that many Americans already view warily.
The strategy includes efforts to leverage the U.S.-China relationship against Biden, who Republicans believe is vulnerable because of his comments last year playing down the geopolitical challenge posed by China and the high-paying work that his son, Hunter, has done there.
Candidates of both parties have targeted China in past campaigns. But with the United States entering a presidential election season as the Wuhan-borne contagion spreads across the country, the rhetoric this time is far more pointed — with concern growing that it will fan xenophobia and discrimination against Asian Americans.
It is especially striking to see a primarily internationalist Democratic Party and the traditionally business-friendly GOP attempt to portray the other as captive to Beijing — yet that only illustrates the electoral incentives at play.
But with the coronavirus death toll growing and the economy at a standstill, polls show that Americans have never viewed China more negatively.
In a recent 17-state survey conducted by Trump’s campaign, 77% of voters agreed that China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, and 79% of voters indicated they did not think China had been truthful about the extent of infections and deaths, according to a Republican briefed on the poll.
Yet those polling numbers also come as 65% of Americans say they believe that Trump was too late responding to the outbreak, according to a Pew Research Center survey this past week.
More ominous for the president are some private Republican surveys that show him losing ground in key states like Michigan, where one recent poll has him losing by double digits, according to a Republican strategist who has seen it.
So as Biden unites the Democratic Party, Trump’s poll numbers are flagging and GOP senators up for reelection find themselves significantly outraised by their Democratic rivals. That has led to a growing urgency in Republican ranks that the president should shelve his hopes for a lucrative rapprochement with China.
“At this moment in time a trade deal is not the right topic of discussion,” said Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who said the pandemic had highlighted the country’s reliance on China in the same painful fashion that the oil crisis of the 1970s revealed how it was at the mercy of the Middle East. “This has exposed our dependency on China for PPE and for critical drugs.”
news.yahoo.com/key-gop-strategy-blame-china-153454763.html?.tsrc=notification-brknews
The New York Times
Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman,The New York Times•April 19, 2020
WASHINGTON — The strategy could not be clearer: From the Republican lawmakers blanketing Fox News to new ads from President Donald Trump’s super PAC to the biting criticism on Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter feed, the GOP is attempting to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China.
With the death toll from the pandemic already surpassing 34,000 Americans and unemployment soaring to levels not seen since the Great Depression, Republicans increasingly believe that elevating China as an archenemy culpable for the spread of the virus, and harnessing America’s growing animosity toward Beijing, may be the best way to salvage a difficult election.
Republican senators locked in difficult races are preparing commercials condemning China. Conservatives with future presidential ambitions of their own, like Sens. Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, are competing to see who can talk tougher toward the country where the virus first emerged. Party officials are publicly and privately brandishing polling data in hopes Trump will confront Beijing.
Trump’s own campaign aides have endorsed the strategy, releasing an attack ad last week depicting Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, as soft on China. The ad relied heavily on images of people of Asian descent, including former Gov. Gary Locke of Washington, who is Chinese American, and it was widely viewed as fanning the flames of xenophobia.
“Trump has always been successful when he’s had a boogeyman and China is the perfect boogeyman,” said Chris LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist.
But there is a potential impediment to the GOP plan — the leader of the party himself.
Eager to continue trade talks, uneasy about further rattling the markets and hungry to protect his relationship with President Xi Jinping at a moment when the United States is relying on China’s manufacturers for lifesaving medical supplies, Trump has repeatedly muddied Republican efforts to fault China.
On Friday, however, he posited that China must have the most deaths from the coronavirus — the United States does — and later said, “I’m not happy with China.” He repeated the assertion Saturday, saying that China had many more deaths than it had reported, and that the virus “could have been stopped in China. Before it started.” But he continued to show deference to Xi, saying “I don’t want to embarrass countries that I like and leaders that I like, but you have to see some of these numbers.”
Despite the president’s diverging public statements, a central pillar of his campaign’s approach is to deflect anger over the human casualties and economic pain of the coronavirus onto an adversary that many Americans already view warily.
The strategy includes efforts to leverage the U.S.-China relationship against Biden, who Republicans believe is vulnerable because of his comments last year playing down the geopolitical challenge posed by China and the high-paying work that his son, Hunter, has done there.
Candidates of both parties have targeted China in past campaigns. But with the United States entering a presidential election season as the Wuhan-borne contagion spreads across the country, the rhetoric this time is far more pointed — with concern growing that it will fan xenophobia and discrimination against Asian Americans.
It is especially striking to see a primarily internationalist Democratic Party and the traditionally business-friendly GOP attempt to portray the other as captive to Beijing — yet that only illustrates the electoral incentives at play.
But with the coronavirus death toll growing and the economy at a standstill, polls show that Americans have never viewed China more negatively.
In a recent 17-state survey conducted by Trump’s campaign, 77% of voters agreed that China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, and 79% of voters indicated they did not think China had been truthful about the extent of infections and deaths, according to a Republican briefed on the poll.
Yet those polling numbers also come as 65% of Americans say they believe that Trump was too late responding to the outbreak, according to a Pew Research Center survey this past week.
More ominous for the president are some private Republican surveys that show him losing ground in key states like Michigan, where one recent poll has him losing by double digits, according to a Republican strategist who has seen it.
So as Biden unites the Democratic Party, Trump’s poll numbers are flagging and GOP senators up for reelection find themselves significantly outraised by their Democratic rivals. That has led to a growing urgency in Republican ranks that the president should shelve his hopes for a lucrative rapprochement with China.
“At this moment in time a trade deal is not the right topic of discussion,” said Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who said the pandemic had highlighted the country’s reliance on China in the same painful fashion that the oil crisis of the 1970s revealed how it was at the mercy of the Middle East. “This has exposed our dependency on China for PPE and for critical drugs.”