this article is overthinking it, i think.

i don't think anybody thinks biden is responsible for the looting, or that trump could do much to stop it, either. i mean, what could trump do? he could declare martial law, that's about it. i don't think wisconsites want that.

it's more of a question of how people organize and separate on the ground; you vote with or against your uncle, or your friends on facebook, and these sort of group mentalities take over, in absence of any really clear logical answer. i mean, what's the answer here? nobody's talking about that, they're just concerned about the fallout, and for good reason; it's not clear what you actually do about this. i'd like to get rid of the cops, but i know that's unlikely, and that trying is full of likely potential pitfalls that could make the issue far worse.

it consequently doesn't help for biden to distance himself from the situation if people are ultimately voting against that frenemy on facebook that, to them, represents biden, rather than against biden, himself.

and, like i say: you only need small numbers of defectors to be decisive in close races, especially given that what's happening is so unlikely to swing voters from trump to biden. like the bet soros made so many years ago, trump has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

i stated before that this isn't biden's fault, but i don't think what he's doing is going to help much.

biden's best tactic here is neither to distance himself from nor align himself with these protests, but to try to change the topic to something he has an advantage in, like health care.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/what-biden-understands-left-does-not/616000/