I doubt Trump is a psychological master, but bucketing a bunch of issues into the China bucket can help reframe the pandemic. China bad, Uighurs, TikTok, trade

I doubt Trump is a psychological master, but bucketing a bunch of issues into the China bucket can help reframe the pandemic. China bad, Uighurs, TikTok, trade deals ... Coronavirus. Trump: I’m not bad, China is. Look at all that stuff in that bucket, need to do something about it, maybe I will, maybe I’m the only one that will. Standard manipulation really. Edit: I’ll add that this tactic is so effective that Biden had no choice but to parrot the rhetoric in the dem debates (said some pretty hard line stuff). Biden/Obama have had a legitimate hard line stance against China with their Asia pivot strategy, but they never used the hard-line rhetoric politically until Trump did. Bill Clinton has similar instincts to Trump. When he campaigned for Hilary in red states, he would straight up say things along the lines of ‘I never thought Obamacare was a good idea’. Trump is in full gear rallying the base, and he’s going to force Biden to mirror some of these views. If he does this successfully, Biden’s attacks on the pandemic handling will constantly be convoluted with the larger China-bad narrative.