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President Trump has declared himself the "president of law and order." Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

President Trump has declared himself the "president of law and order."

Nearly a month after the killing of George Floyd while in police custody and the launch of massive protests against police brutality across the country, President Trump was asked what part of his response would he have handled differently.

"I think that tone is a very important thing and I try to have a very good tone, a very moderate tone, a very sympathetic in some cases tone, but it's a very important tone," Trump said.

Though when pressed on what he would change, the president said, "I would say if I could, I would do tone."

No modern president has been as aggressive a culture warrior as Donald Trump.

He announced his candidacy by accusing Mexican immigrants of being rapists. He criticized Black athletes who knelt during the national anthem. He championed police officers but promoted rough policing, telling law enforcement officers in a 2017 speech, "please don't be too nice" when making an arrest. Recently, he announced over Twitter that he would never consider removing the name of Confederate generals from military bases.

Trump has also fixated on the historic phrase "law and order."

"I will fight to protect you I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters," Trump said in the Rose Garden on June 1, as law enforcement began firing pepper spray on peaceful protesters in nearby Lafayette Park.

"Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa and others," Trump said.

Culture wars have been part of American politics for decades. Hot-button issues like immigration, family values and respect for the American flag can get a more powerful reaction from voters than dry debates over taxes or Medicare.

But at a time when the country continues to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, an economic recession and, above all, heightened levels of racial unrest, the culture wars are changing, and Trump, who has always relished a fight over white identity and culture is struggling to adjust.

Many of Trump's culture war allies are defecting NASCAR decided to ban the Confederate flag and the NFL apologized for punishing its athletes who knelt to protest police brutality.

According to David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, the most notable rift came when military leaders, whom Trump likes to call " my generals," broke with him. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said they would not only consider renaming military bases but also rejected Trump's threat to use the U.S. military against protesters.

"That was a seminal, I think, development in this story," Axelrod said, who is also a CNN senior political commentator and host of the Axe Files and Hacks on Tap podcasts.

Axelrod added that Trump also faced opposition from retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, his former defense secretary, and several prominent military leaders who criticized his decision to take a photo in front of St. John's Church following the removal of protesters on June 1.

"Trump has so tried to cleave himself to the military and claim the military as his own. And what the military was saying there is that 'No. We're not yours. We belong to the Constitution. We have principles and rules and norms and laws that we're going to follow.' And that was an incredible rebuke for him." Axelrod said.

Despite a visible push away from Trump on many of the culture war issues, not every part of the conservative coalition is ready to call a truce. There has even been a backlash to the new positions of institutions like the NFL.

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says kneeling athletes will still be a cultural flashpoint and disagrees with the NFL's decision.

"Refusing to stand for the national anthem is an insult to America. It's not protesting racism. It's protesting the United States of America, and that's what the divide is going to become. If you want to be anti-American, you've got a party eager to be with you," Gingrich said.

"I can tell you I probably won't watch the NFL this year, and I'm a big Green Bay fan," he said.

Gingrich, an experienced culture warrior in his own right, argues that Trump will be able to find new issues to push as his Democratic opponents find new ways to overreach. And that's why he believes the culture wars are not over.

"The nice thing in my entire career about dealing with the left is they can't contain themselves," Gingrich said, adding, "so they go from very legitimate demand to reform the police, to defund the police because they just can't help themselves."

Specific culture war issues can also come and go. In 2004, Republican strategist Karl Rove harnessed the backlash to gay marriage during President George W. Bush's 2004 campaign to help get him reelected. Although, less than a decade later, the same issue faded following the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage in 2015.

Now, Rove says the same thing is happening, especially following the recent Supreme Court ruling that protects LGBTQ people against workplace discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

"They'll be some concern in some quarters about the latest decision by the court. But, yeah, that's the interesting thing about Supreme Court decisions. Not always, but many times, they tend to sort of diminish the controversy," Rove said.

Another more fundamental reason why culture wars are shifting is that most modern cultural battles are racial.

Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons says that white voters have started to think differently in the wake of George Floyd's killing.

"The video of Black men being killed on television is much like the 1950s and '60s when Martin Luther King had even children marching in Alabama, and being attacked by fire hoses and dogs. That kind of thing really does speak to the morality that I think most Americans hold," Simmons said.

Simmons, who also hosts #ThisisFYI on Instagram, says the events of the past month have changed how many Americans respond to and deal with acts of racism and, adding, "They can't just sit by quietly and let it happen."

"It's raised the stakes on these questions of racial harmony and our ability to get past our history," Simmons said, adding, "and what it seems like as afraid as people may be of rioters and looters they may be more afraid of a president who is not against racism and who's not trying to bring the country together."

Trump was originally set to hold his first campaign rally since the COVID-19 pandemic on June 19 in Tulsa, Okla. After receiving criticism for scheduling the event on the holiday Juneteenth, in a city that experienced a racist massacre of black people in June 1921, Trump changed the date to June 20.

"Certainly in the television era, it's the first time that we've had a president who's been so willing to embrace a racially exclusive perspective on American politics, and that may be turning the tide against him," Simmons added.

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As The Culture Wars Shift, President Trump Struggles To ...

Prime minister Boris Johnson stirs culture war over Churchill statue. So ran a recent New York Times headline. The Washington Post agreed. As counter protesters took to the streets to protect statues and as controversy erupted over foreign secretary Dominic Raabs comments on taking the knee, many British commentators, too, saw a nation divided and a prime minister stoking the flames of a culture war.

Yet an Ipsos Mori poll, published last week, paints a different picture. Nine out of 10 Britons, it showed, would be happy for their child to marry someone of another ethnic group. Just 3% thought someone had to be white to be truly British. The British public, the pollsters observed, have become avowedly more open minded in their attitudes towards race.

There is a similar puzzle in America. Two months ago, had you asked academics or commentators about the consequences of American cities burning in the wake of protests over the killing of a black man by a white policeman, most would probably have agreed that polarisation would be exacerbated and Donald Trump strengthened. The opposite has happened. The president seems more politically isolated and even demographic groups seen as significant to the Trump base, those without higher education, for instance, show sympathy towards Black Lives Matter.

How do we explain this paradox? Why are societies both fractured by culture wars and yet, Britain certainly more than America, united, and unitedly liberal, over some of the most fractious aspects of those wars?

From one perspective, liberals have already won the culture wars. Attitudes on race, gender and sexuality have changed so much over the past 40 years that weve almost become blind to that transformation. Between 1989 and 2019, the proportion of the population that thought that gay relationships were wrong fell from 40% to 13%; the numbers opposed to abortions halved, as did those who thought it wrong to have a child outside of marriage. When the first British Social Attitudes Survey was published in 1983, more than 50% of whites would not countenance a spouse of a difference race, a figure that barely declined throughout that decade.

Britain in the 1980s was another country. Racism was vicious and visceral and woven into the fabric of British society in a way difficult to imagine now.

Racism has not disappeared, but the context is very different. Racist attacks or workplace discrimination today take place in a society in which virtually no one, unlike 40 years ago, views them as acceptable. (The major caveat is that attitudes to Muslims remain illiberal.)

At the same time, though, the traditional left/right divide has eroded, so the ways in which we view ourselves and our social affiliations has changed and not necessarily for the better. Culture and identity play a bigger role in how we define ourselves politically. The frameworks through which we make sense of the world are as often white or Muslim or European as they are liberal or conservative or socialist. And when people talk of liberal or conservative or Remain or Leave these are seen as cultural identities as much as political viewpoints.

The coincidence of these two trends has created societies more liberal and yet more fractious. Consider attitudes towards immigration. Most polls show that Britain has become more relaxed about the issue, leading some commentators to suggest that Brexit has made people less worried about immigration. The reality is more complicated. The shift in attitudes began well before the Brexit debate. And polls show that almost half of Leave voters think immigration has a negative impact compared with 12% of Remain voters; fewer than a third of Leave voters think immigration has a positive impact. A majority of the public still wants numbers reduced.

The complexity of the response is not surprising. The public has become more liberal and less racist. Immigration has, however, also become symbolic of unacceptable change. Working-class lives have in recent decades been made more precarious through the stagnation of wages, the rise of the gig economy and the imposition of austerity. The power of labour movement organisations has eroded, the Labour party has drifted away from its traditional constituencies.

Immigrants are not responsible for these changes. But the very decline of the economic and political power of the working class has helped obscure the economic and political roots of social problems. As the language of culture has become an important means through which to understand ones place in society, so many in the working class have come to see their marginalisation as a cultural loss. Immigration, viewed as a key reason for cultural change, has come to bear responsibility for that loss.

Those challenging racism similarly often view their problems through the lens of identity politics and their targets, too, are frequently symbolic. Debates about racism in recent years have often revolved around issues such as language and cultural appropriation. What began as protests about police brutality has, for some, morphed into a campaign against racist statues and controversy over an English rugby anthem.

The cultural turn of recent years has encouraged people to repose political problems as issues of culture or identity. Rather than ask What are the policy reasons for the lack of housing and stagnating wages? or What are the social roots of racism and what structural changes are required to combat it?, we look to blame the Other, demand recognition for our particular identity and tussle over symbols.

Many white working-class people accuse immigrants of stealing jobs and scamming the benefits system, while anti-racists often deride Karens and gammons and finger working-class people as bigots. The growth of liberal social attitudes, far from being a base from which to build a movement to tackle both racism and the marginalisation of the working class, itself becomes lost in the social fractures. We should beware that we dont get trapped in our own blindness.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist

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Culture wars risk blinding us to just how liberal we've ...

Speaker safety is something that we've had to worry about for a lot, a lot longer than just Covid times where people have, you know, tried to assault our speakers and throw things at them and everything else, said YAFs Brown. So thankfully, we have a pretty good plan for that.

Groups are also considering gathering an audience to a speaker beamed in over Zoom, the default pandemic conferencing app.

The students on that campus can still experience [an] in-person event, but the guests might be remote just via Zoom and take questions that way, Bryan Bernys, the Leadership Institute's vice president of campus programs.

The Leadership Institute has similarly transitioned its activist lecture events to Zoom conferencing. In addition to the normal slate of seminars, the group has also integrated programs and events teaching how to hold socially-distanced events during the pandemic.

The biggest obstacle, however, might not have anything to do with social distancing but how to keep students engaged in activism, or even in the local chapters, when theyre studying from home. Across the country, many students are opting to take time off school to wait out the pandemic, and conservative students arent immune.

That does have an impact on your activist base and cultivating relationships, said Bowyer, of Students for Trump. If the bodies that were there one semester aren't the same ones that come back the next semester, it's like kind of retraining and reorganizing.

The situation for every conservative activist group, from local chapter to nationwide organization based out of Northern Virginia, remains fluid. But Brown argued that such a situation appeals to conservative ideology.

I think it's one of those things that actually kind of fits into what we would be [doing when] advancing ideas on campus, which is this idea that a universal plan is not going to work well for everybody, said Brown. We obviously as conservatives prefer smaller units of decision making and more localized control.

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The pandemic hasnt ended the campus culture wars - POLITICO

President TrumpDonald John TrumpTwo 'The Apprentice' producers helping with Republican National Convention About 70,000 lives could be saved in near future if people wear masks: researchers Trump issues disaster declaration for California as wildfires rage MORE on Saturday hit Democrats over the Pledge of Allegiance, leaning deeper into the culture wars he hopes will elevate his reelection bid.

Trump took to Twitter to accuse Democrats of not uttering the word God in the pledge at this weeks Democratic National Convention. While the word was featured in the pledge at the convention every night for each of the four days, some of the speakers did not say it duringtheMuslim Delegates and Allies Assemblyand theLGBTQ Caucus meeting, which were not part of the main programming,according to The Associated Press.

The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat National Convention. At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasnt. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from-its done. Vote Nov 3! Trump tweeted.

The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat National Convention. At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasnt. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from-its done. Vote Nov 3!

The Trump campaign doubled down, tweeting out a video compiling comments from meeting speakerswho were critical of the government.

Watch: pic.twitter.com/2sSrtbhdgt

The controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance was sparked by a story on the Trump-friendly Christian Broadcasting Networkthatwas then picked up by Fox News.

The tweet led to a flood of posts fact-checking the president, with users posting videos compiling all the times under God was said during the convention.

We need not agree with the @TheDemocrats platform to speak simple truth when @realDonaldTrump lies. Heres the pledge from all four nights of the DNC. https://t.co/sHes8QEp2Y

The Saturday morning tweet represents just the latest attempt by Trump to tap into hot-button issues he hopes will rile up his base and propel his reelection campaign as polls show him trailing former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenHouse passes B bill to boost Postal Service Trump seeks to overcome eroding support among women Here are the states where Kanye West is on the ballot MORE, the Democratic Partys 2020 nominee, both nationally and in key swing states.

The president in speeches and online has highlighted various fronts of the culture wars to boost support among critical demographicssuch as evangelicals and suburbanites.

We moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That's for the evangelicals, he said this week.

Trump has also warned that Democratic policies will lead to a spike in crime in suburbs, citing ongoing protests in some cities over systemic racism, amid signals the GOP is shedding support in such areas after the president won the vote in suburbs in 2016.

Why would Suburban Women vote for Biden and the Democrats when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime (and they arent asking the Federal Government for help) which could easily spread to the suburbs, and they will reconstitute, on steroids, their low income suburbs plan! Trump tweeted Saturday.

Why would Suburban Women vote for Biden and the Democrats when Democrat run cities are now rampant with crime (and they arent asking the Federal Government for help) which could easily spread to the suburbs, and they will reconstitute, on steroids, their low income suburbs plan!

The remarks as of yet have failed to make a sizable dent in Bidens polling lead.

Updated: 12:37 p.m.

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Trump targets Democrats over Pledge of Allegiance | TheHill - The Hill

At the first virtual Democratic National Convention, three former presidents, social justice activists, farmers, small business owners, survivors of violence, teachers, immigrants, and a whole lot of disgruntled Republicans declared that this nation cant afford four more years of President Trump in the White House.

When the first virtual Republican National Convention begins Monday, no one will punctuate that point more emphatically than the president himself.

Expect a GOP horror show with Trump as the ringleader of what will likely be an ugly spectacle of white grievance and culture wars. That Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the white St. Louis couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, have been invited to speak at the RNC lays bare the path Trump has chosen for the bell lap of his reelection campaign.

It is, of course, what Trump has done every second of his presidency, the most corrupt and ruinous in modern American history. He has rolled away every rock and allowed this nations worst impulses to crawl into the light, as he dismantles democracy faster than Postmaster General Louis DeJoy can destroy the United States Postal Service.

During a recent CNN appearance, Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official in the Trump administration, said: If weve learned one lesson about Donald Trump, its that if he thinks something aligns with his personal interests, it is good; if it doesnt align with his personal interests, it is bad. In the case of things like QAnon and conspiracy theories, as long as they support and reinforce the presidents world view, he will embrace them with a full hug.

QAnon, a loosely affiliated far-right conspiracy group deemed a terrorist threat by the FBI, claims that anyone opposed to Trump is a cannibal, pedophile, or Satanist fomenting a deep-state overthrow of his administration. Or something.

This president isnt interested in truth, Taylor said. Hes interested in his truth.

That truth chooses authoritarianism over democracy, baseless conspiracy theories over verifiable facts, and the will of Russian President Vladimir Putin, even when his actions reportedly endanger American troops.

As former President Barack Obama said in his DNC speech, This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if thats what it takes to win. That includes the ongoing sabotage of the November election, less than 75 days away.

Trump will do nothing at the RNC to address the concerns of his critics, from former First Lady Michelle Obamas vivisection of his failures to Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harriss pointed I know a predator when I see one. Hell look only to his base, speaking to those who like him, no matter how dangerous or deluded they may be.

Racism, of course, will play no small part here. Its Trumps Free Bird, with tiki torches instead of lighters. Because racism deliberately benefits some while methodically working against others, it will always be this nations biggest threat to a true democracy. Count on Trump to use it as he presents himself as the last best hope for the uninterrupted centuries-long reign of white supremacy.

Trumps playbook of prejudice is well-worn and thin, but since it helped get him to the White House in 2016, he will again make it the centerpiece of his argument for a second term. Thats what drives his pitch to suburban housewives read white women about his elimination of an Obama-era anti-discrimination housing rule. Low income housing in the suburbs, as Trump calls it, is his new migrant caravan, which he evoked in the months leading up to the 2018 midterms.

With the RNC limited by the COVID-19 pandemic that Trump has lethally mishandled, he wont have the adoring audience his ego so desperately craves. (Although I wouldnt put it past him to find enough sycophants willing to shun masks and social distancing protocols to cram into some space when he makes his acceptance speech.)

In his anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump has often said, Without borders, we dont have a country. With a second Trump presidency, we wont have a democracy. In this troubled national moment, a president should allay his countrys fears. Instead, peddling disunity and despair, Trump will magnify his possible reelection as a clear and present threat.

Rene Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.

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At the RNC, Trump will offer the strongest case against his reelection - The Boston Globe