MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. The protests that have gripped the US since late May undermine Donald Trump’s possible success at the upcoming presidential elections, Valery Garbuzov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies, said in an interview with TASS.
"Nobody predicted that there would be such outbursts, or flare-ups, the sort of collective hysteria which has been going on for a while now. Evidently, it presents peculiarities for the election campaign and is spoiling the broader picture for incumbent US President Donald Trump, which used to look more favorable. However, the buildup of new factors linked to the pandemic and the mass protests completely shifted the focus of this campaign for him, primarily questioning his real chances at the November election," he noted. According to the commentator, the protests in the US are overshadowing the election campaign.
Garbuzov emphasized that Trump is not doing well at calming either the demonstrations or the epidemiological outbreaks. "The Democrats are also playing this up, backing this unrest that is morphing into riots practically everywhere. These are not simply peaceful marches and demonstrations. We need to realize that the Democrats were betting on Joe Biden, but before he won the primaries and managed to beat Bernie Sanders, strong left-wing tendencies prevailed in the Democratic Party," he continued.
The analyst noted that the polarization of American society has been especially evident for the last few years, with the Republican Party shifting significantly to the right, while the Democrats strayed to the left. "The radicalization of the political spectrum leads to the radicalization of America’s political atmosphere. It is very electrified now in this sense," Garbuzov explained.
According to him, leftist slogans at the marches echo the fact that the US Democratic Party over the last few years has moved further to the left. "This left wing which Sanders spearheaded and will be leading is quite extreme. This radicalism is present on America’s streets. The Democrats need it to enter November with a hope for victory, but later they won’t need this radicalism," the expert insisted.
Protest prospects
The expert pointed out that the current demonstrations are often compared in their scale and sway on US society to the 1960s riots that swept across America’s urban black ghettos. However, he points out that the key difference is that back then the marches were not orchestrated by organizations some of which were ultra-radical and had armed units. "The situation was much more explosive then. However, the Lyndon Johnson administration managed to quell the extremists at that time. Today, this movement is much more spontaneous and partially organized through the Internet," he clarified.
Garbuzov recalled that the US establishment then tried to respond to the challenge by introducing Great Society, a set of domestic policies, which envisioned social reforms to eradicate poverty and abolish racial segregation. The expert believes that the move was tactically successful but led to an even further disintegration of the black population. "An entitlement culture has overtaken the black community; blacks viewed it as compensation for the past sins of whites. They started seeing it as granted and demanding more, but it only led to them managing to live off these benefits and programs without working," he explained.
to him, such a behavioral problem was copied by community members, which stripped many of the motivation to work and receive an education. "Unfortunately, the US has been trying to solve these issues for decades but hasn’t been able to. The blacks are still not integrated into American society, and as soon as something happens like with George Floyd, the whole black community explodes," the expert added.
Nevertheless, there is no other way out of currently exacerbating protests but to offer new concessions. "This will not address the problem, but it will ease tensions," he concluded.
US anti-racism protests
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. To counter the riots, local law enforcement backed by the National Guard was called in. Numerous cities enacted curfews as a response.
In certain cases, protesters directed their anger at statues by vandalizing them, particularly those dedicated to political figures of the Confederate States of America. A few monuments erected to honor Christopher Columbus were toppled as well as statues of first US President George Washington in Portland, Oregon.
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives approved legislation to take down statues honoring figures who were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War from the US Capitol, along with all monuments to those who advocated for slavery across the country.