Joseph Sabino Mistick: We need more than tweets to solve our issues

Presidential campaigns are complicated. Election Day comes after years of political maneuvering, primary elections scattered across the land, late summer nominating conventions and televised debates that are part policy and part showbiz — all ending in November after months of media coverage.

While some of that will be different this year because of the pandemic, my guess is that this campaign season will only get more complicated than usual. But if you listen to Donald Trump talk as he campaigns, you might think that it’s all Black or white — all about race. Instead of engaging in the difficult fight for racial justice, Trump yearns for the 1950s status quo.

It’s an unusual strategy when, according to almost all opinion polls, the nation is ready for change. The president’s simple black-or-white view bolsters the resentments of a small group of voters who still revere those Confederate generals and fly the flag of that enemy and long for the days of Dixie. But Trump is walking away from all the Republicans and Democrats who are not yearning to restore a political consensus that excludes women and Blacks.

When there were calls to rename the military bases named for Confederate officers, Trump refused to consider it, even to rename them for real American heroes. He tweeted that they are “Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations” and he’s right, but there’s nothing magnificent and fabled about the vanquished traitors they are named after.

When NASCAR barred the Confederate flag at its events, saying that it “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment,” the president called the flag “freedom of speech.” That flag is a symbol of bondage to Black Americans, but Trump told CBS News, “I know people that like the Confederate flag, and they’re not thinking about slavery.”

And when asked what he thought about so many Black people dying during encounters with law enforcement, he went in a different direction.

“So are white people. So are white people,” Trump told reporter Catherine Herridge. “What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people, by the way. More white people.”

That was a simple response for him, because facing the facts would require complicated solutions. Black people are “about two and a half times as likely to be shot and killed by police as white people,” according to a recent analysis by Philip Bump in The Washington Post.

It turns out that we need more than presidential tweets or soundbites to solve the tough issues we face. None of the real issues are that simple.

We should probably listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci. Fauci, when pleading for a strong federal plan to fight the coronavirus that is killing Americans in droves, told the Atlantic, “We’ve got to almost reset this and say, ‘OK, let’s stop this nonsense.’ ”

After frequent attacks by the Trump administration and science deniers for his candid coronavirus advice, Fauci said it is time to stop focusing on “these games people are playing.”