MOSCOW, June 14. /TASS/. The chances that US President Donald Trump will be reelected at the November election will not lower due to the unrest gripping the United States after the death of Afro-American George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but on the contrary, the unrest will mobilize his electorate, Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Russian Higher School of Economics (HSE) and an expert of the Valdai Discussion Club, told TASS on Saturday.
"The protests are unlikely to ensure Donald Trump’s failure, since he has a grip on his electorate," said the expert. "On the contrary, the protests deepen divide in American society with regard to cultural values. The Democratic Party is dramatically shifting to the left in the wake of these protests."
The expert pointed out that the ideas of Bernie Sanders, a US Senator from Vermont and a Democratic presidential nominee who had dropped out of the presidential race, were becoming dominant among his fellow party members in spite of Sanders’ loss in the primaries.
"Centrist democrats, such as House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former US Vice President Joseph Biden have to adapt to this and also lean to the left," he explained. "Most Republicans hold on to Trump. They continue to support him and look at the developments in the Democratic camp with enormous animosity and outright hostility."
According to the expert, protests embody concerns of the US president’s voters that they "are being robbed of their country" and are being imposed with the policy of multiculturalism. Republicans’ supporters are outraged by Democratic governors’ inaction, while the Republican Party is getting more and more right conservative amid that sentiment. American society will continue to get polarized, in the expert’s opinion, irrespective of an outcome of the presidential election, since "neither will consent defeat and will brand the winner an illegitimate president."
"The United States will fall into a domestic political stupor in a few years to come, which will have a rather negative effect on Washington’s foreign policy," Suslov continued. "It means that in foreign policy those directions will be prioritized that have bipartisan accord - the deterrence of Russia and the perception of it as an adversary as well as the deterrence of China and the perception of it as adversary number one."
Unrest in US
Widespread unrest has engulfed many US states over the death of an African-American Minneapolis man named George Floyd, who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck and choked him to death during his arrest. On May 26, all officers involved in the deadly arrest were fired. On May 29, the policeman in question, Derek Chauvin, was arrested on third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges. However, on June 3, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison upped the charge against Chauvin to second-degree murder. The three other officers involved in the fatal incident were arrested as well and are now facing charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.