TRUMP SENDS FEDERAL POLICE
Comment: Defend the White House by force of arms
Unlike many a predecessor, Donald Trump declares war not to other countries but to their own people in times of falling poll values before the presidential election, comments Ines Pohl from Chicago.

It didn't look good for Donald Trump. COVID-19 has a firm grip on the USA. The number of infected people keeps increasing, the morgues are full in many cities. Trucks are parked in front of hospitals in the parking lots where the dead are cooled. A straying president who doesn't want to take responsibility for national bailout plans, advises dubious self-injections, and has made fun of wearing masks for a long time is increasingly annoying not only his political opponents. Support within the own party is also beginning to crumble. With every new corona horror report, Trump's challenger Joe Biden gains ground. Many surveys now report a two-digit lead.

Even a Donald Trump, who likes to put the world together in the way that suits him best, has now realized that the economy will not have recovered by November. On the contrary - the terrible economic upheavals are becoming more visible every week. His government cannot pump that much money into the system to delay the effects until after election day. And the slogan "China is to blame for everything" should not be enough to end up with enough Trump supporters to win the elections.

Stoke violence to then play the savior
Other presidents have started wars in such situations. An external enemy welds together. War presidents are re-elected.

Ines Pohl heads the DW Studio Washington

Donald Trump takes a different path. He deliberately turns the uncertainty of many Americans into sheer fear. He perfidiously uses the breaks that have existed in American society from the beginning to further divide the country. Regardless of losses, he stirs up violence so that he can act as the savior in need.

He does this with the same political tactics that paved the way to the White House in 2016: it is "the others" who pose the threat. It is "the others" who are to blame. And it is "the others" from whom he, the strong man, protects his followers.

It is a simple concept. But it works in this country that has lost its inner compass. It works for people where anger has replaced hope for the fulfillment of their American dream in a world in which the supremacy of the United States is fading. And it works through the images with which Donald Trump dominates the screens through his current political coup.

Trump's unwanted declaration of war
First, the anonymous Trump troops were supposed to protect historical statues. The President had therefore issued a decree in June that allowed him to deploy federal police in cities where the protest against police violence and discrimination against blacks did not abate. For the national holiday on July 4th, he declared war for the first time on the "left mob" who denigrated America's glorious history. And indeed, the pictures from Portland suggest war-like conditions. What is currently going on is worse than Afghanistan, he recently said in the Oval Office. And Trump's tactics seem to be getting caught at least by his clientele.

Neither the mayors nor the governors want this "support" from Washington. They know that the federal police are not pacifying in their camouflage suits, but are provoking further riots through their brute force. They don't want anonymous forces to smash protesters and drag them into cars.

But Trump wants these pictures. And he wants more of it. Because he sees this as the last chance to defend the White House: through violence on American streets, which provokes counterviolence and provides him with the images he needs to act as a savior. The deployment of additional federal troops will help him do just that.