Independent voters – the crucial group who decide most elections – and even some of the US President’s core supporters are obviously appalled
Some things are easier to spin than others. It is not that difficult to convince a large number of Americans that the mainstream media is “fake news” or that the Democratic Party is “woke”. It is eminently possible to persuade people, in the face of fact, that prices are coming down and the economy is booming.
Getting people to deny the evidence of their own eyes, though, is more difficult. Anyone who has seen the harrowing footage of the slaying of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, at the hands of Border Patrol officers, will know what they saw – a man, pinned to the ground by agents and posing no threat to them, is shot ten times in the back.
Donald Trump and those around him are trying every trick in their repertoire to convince at least their own supporters that the killing was justified, was Pretti’s own fault, or was at least the fault of Minneapolis’s Democratic Mayor, Jacob Frey, or the state’s Governor, Tim Walz. But those tricks are only taking them so far.
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Pretti is just about the worst victim possible for the Trump White House. He was a 37-year-old straight white man who worked in an intensive care unit treating American veterans.
On the day he was killed, he was legally carrying a firearm – a fact several senior Trump officials tried to use to justify his killing, a tactic that rapidly backfired, given Republicans’ strong support for the right to bear arms and the party’s reliance on political and financial support from the National Rifle Association.
Just a few weeks ago, when Renee Good was shot dead in her car, Maga and its media outriders used her LGBTQ+ status to other her – with Trump’s Department of Justice launching a criminal investigation into Good’s wife, but not into the ICE agent who shot her. So far, they are struggling to find a similar reason to demonise Pretti, though not for lack of trying.
Pretti’s death puts a simple fact in ever more stark relief: when most Americans see pictures and videos of Trump’s occupations of American cities, they hate what they are seeing. This was true when it was Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago, and it’s certainly true of the awful pictures appearing daily of ICE activities.
A small cadre of radicalised supporters wanted to see tear gas sprayed into the faces of “libs”, pastors arrested, and crying mothers dragged out in the street to be deported. But most Maga voters just wanted the “bad” illegal immigrants to be gone. Faced with the reality of what mass deportations mean, they do not want it.
Trump’s White House can easily ignore the unhappiness of Democratic voters and appears to relish it. But when independent voters – the crucial group who decide most elections – and even some of Trump’s base are obviously appalled, he has a problem, especially with midterm elections coming up this year.
The US President’s obfuscation shows he is aware of that problem – and panicking. He is making vague promises to “review” everything that happened in relation to Pretti’s death, but these ring hollow to anyone even occasionally following the news. The agents who shot and killed Pretti have not been placed on administrative leave, let alone suspended or arrested. They are still out on the streets, in an official capacity.
The problem for Trump in responding to this self-inflicted crisis is that while most of the American public hates what they are seeing in Minneapolis, some in his White House love it. This is what they came into office to do.
Trump is surrounded by hardcore nationalists who see him as their vehicle to rebuild America – and mass deportations are the first step in doing that. A faction led by Stephen Miller, and represented by the ambitious US Vice President JD Vance, is leading this hardline movement. They are urging the President to go further, all but openly seeking an excuse to activate the Insurrection Act, enabling them to send in American troops into American cities.
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The main obstacle standing in their way is Trump himself, who, on some level, still wants to be loved and thanked by the nation he so divisively leads. Even now, he complains about the difficulties of building the new White House ballroom, wondering plaintively why anyone would mount legal challenges against a building project he sees as his legacy.
Trump is a petty and vindictive man who wants revenge on his enemies, but he still wants to be seen as a unifying figure – he has more than once spoken of his wish to one day be represented alongside other great presidents on Mount Rushmore. Trump doesn’t look at the footage out of Minnesota and feel horror in the same way most of us do, but he understands that it’s bad for him – trapping him between the hardliners he’s surrounded himself with, and his own political instincts.
America hates what is happening in Minneapolis. The voters Republicans rely upon to stay in power hate it. Even an increasing share of the Maga base hates it. That means Trump is wavering. The question is whether Miller and the hardliners can convince him that none of that matters. If they succeed, things could get much worse, and quickly.