In wake of Orlando tragedy, political divide in U.S. campaign widens

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It is true that tragedies often bring countries together. It is also true that that does not happen in election years in the United States.

So when the deadly confusion ended at the Orlando bar where 49 club-goers were killed last weekend, the political battle in the United States did not abate. It intensified. The divisions did not disappear. They widened. The rhetoric did not cool. It heated up.

And as the anger and the campaign oratory intensified, this bloody juncture served like no other to clarify fundamental differences between Manhattan billionaire Donald J. Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to set out their different visions of the character of the country and to throw light on the differences between the constituencies they are seeking to cultivate and motivate.

"The people who would support Trump's view and the people who support Clinton's view," said John C. Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, "have two very different views of the world." This was especially significant because Mr. Trump, in his remarks this week, took aim not only at the terrorism that left more than four dozen dead in Orlando, but also at one of the root values of both Ms. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

The twin cores of Clintonism, as the couple's doctrine has become known, are the cultivation of economic opportunity and the celebration of American diversity and as president Mr. Clinton repeatedly cited the presence and prominence of minorities as a national strength, not a national weakness. In her remarks this week, Ms. Clinton argued that "our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability," and added, in a speech here in Pittsburgh Tuesday, that Mr. Trump's remarks were "shameful," "disrespectful," and "nonsensical." So while Mr. Trump argued that immigrants – Muslims in this case, but Mexicans in other cases – endangered American safety, Ms. Clinton this week argued that it was "inflammatory, anti-Muslim rhetoric" such as her rival's that rendered the country less safe.

But suddenly a campaign that was centred on economic security turned on its axis to the theme of national and personal security.

And as that transformation was occurring, Mr. Trump made an abrupt but subtle adjustment in his campaign theme. No longer does he promise simply to "Make America Great Again." Now he is promising to "Make America Safe Again" – a phrase that swiftly appeared in his tweets and in campaign press releases.

At the same time, Ms. Clinton called on Americans to have "clear eyes, steady hands, and unwary determination and pride in our country and our values." It was those last two words – "our values" – that she employed to set her apart from her rival in the November general election, where she hopes to paint Mr. Trump, who now is underscoring his commitment to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States, as an enemy of traditional American values of tolerance and competence.

But Ms. Clinton, as careful in her language as Mr. Trump is impulsive in his, clearly set herself apart in a different way as well; she pointedly began to use the phrase "radical Islamism," which in the context of the terror attack may seem thoroughly unremarkable but which in the context of the current presidential campaign is a major departure.

With those two words – repeatedly avoided by President Barack Obama, prompting a fusillade of criticism from Republican officeholders and conservative talk-show hosts who taunt the president for his omission – the former secretary of state made a symbolic, not subliminal, statement, a declaration of independence of sorts from the president who selected her as the country's chief diplomat. All candidates seeking to succeed a president of their own party search for ways – some small, some large – to differentiate themselves from their putative predecessors, a political manoeuvre undertaken before Ms. Clinton by two previous vice presidents. George H.W. Bush, for example, spoke of a "kinder, gentler" approach, prompting Nancy Reagan, the 40th president's protective wife, to wonder out loud: kinder and gentler than whom? Albert Gore Jr. repeatedly sought to put distance between him and Mr. Clinton, who had been impeached in the House of Representatives (but not convicted in the Senate) for actions growing out of an affair with a White House intern.

Ms. Clinton's approach in the past several days has been to argue that the broad availability of guns in the United States provides too many opportunities for people to commit violence. From the Trump perspective, the country is threatened and needs to build up its defences, in part through a wall. So in this fraught period of reflection and recrimination, the two presidential candidates are emphasizing their support for new federal regulations – but regulations of separate natures entirely. For Mr. Trump, it is immigration that needs to be regulated. For Ms. Clinton, it is access to weapons. The debate over government regulation has been a sturdy perennial in American civic life, but rarely have the differences between presidential candidates been so stark – and so relevant.