Trump’s opponents need to take his patriotic card away and portray him as the true enemy of the nation – it can be done

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But its cynical message remains true today and goes to the heart of Donald Trump’s tactics that won him the White House almost four years ago and are fuelling his rebound in the polls today, making it all too possible that he will be re-elected as president on 3 November. He is lured onto political terrain favourable to Trump where the focus is on racial fears and hatreds and attention is diverted away from Trump’s calamitous handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Politicians like Trump and the present generation of populist nationalist leaders such as Viktor Orban in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and Narendra Modi in India, employ similar tactics. Joe Biden says Trump 'legitimises dark side of human nature' in Kenosha speech A common feature of this failure is that the Trumpian regimes have been able to monopolise patriotism at a time when the nation state remains the primary focus of communal loyalty within countries.