Willie Brown: Burning and looting in the name of justice will hand election to Trump

Photo of Willie Brown
A used car lot burns in Kenosha, Wis., during mayhem that followed protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back.


Brandon Bell / Getty Images

The biggest threat to a Democratic election sweep in November isn’t the Republican in the White House, but the demonstrators who are tearing up cities in the name of racial justice.

President Trump clearly plans to make the burning and looting in what he calls “Democrat-run” cities like Portland, Ore., Kenosha, Wis., and even Oakland a centerpiece of his law-and-order platform.

And it’s not just the presidential race that may be affected. Left unchecked, the mayhem could harm Democrats running for office all across the country.

A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that three-fourths of people surveyed were concerned about rising crime in the nation’s cities. Nearly half were worried about rising crime where they live.

Numbers like that have Democrats in a heck of a bind.

If they stand up and condemn the “demonstrators,” the left wing will label them as Trump flunkies and they’ll be in all sorts of trouble.

If they keep quiet or offer passive responses, voters will assume they’re OK with burning and looting.

What we need to do is have everyone, including the media, stop calling the after-dark destruction “demonstrations.”




Duck, Joe: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is smartly advising Joe Biden not to debate President Trump, although the real reason he should dodge the stage is not the one Pelosi suggested.

Pelosi said a debate would only serve to “legitimize” Trump’s lack of “any association with truth” and encourage him to “act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.”

My reasoning is a bit different: Biden would probably get his backside kicked.

Biden has never been a good debater. He’s too civilized, too nuanced for a matchup with Trump.

It would be like Willie Brown taking on LeBron James in a one-on-one pickup game.

If the polls are to believed, Biden has a respectable lead over Trump in the states that are likely to decide the election.

Why mess with success? Why give your opponent an audience?

If your opponent in on the mat, let him stay on the mat. Don’t give him the chance to get up.

The show: The Democrats tried to sell their virtual convention as a show.

The Republicans had a show that they tried to sell us as a convention.

In terms of entertainment value, the Republicans won hands down. Their telethon was livelier and better-produced than the Democrats’.

It was also so weird that I couldn’t help but watch it.

They had President Trump handing out a pardon to a three-time bank robber on national TV. And the reformed bank robber brought a Bible with him.

They had Trump standing by awkwardly while several new U.S. citizens took the oath at the White House, reportedly unaware that they were being used as campaign props.

They also had a couple of showstoppers, like Sen. Tim Scott, a Black Republican from South Carolina, declaring that only in America could his family have gone “from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.” The best line of the convention, in my opinion.

Trump himself, however, was good for only about a half hour in his nomination acceptance speech, which was 40 minutes short of when he actually stopped talking.

By the end he looked like a guy leaning up against the bar, turning from one side to the other and droning on about how great he was and how bad life would be under four years of a guy named Joe Biden.

It was as if Biden were the incumbent and Trump the challenger.

Judging by the national reaction, the real star of week was San Francisco’s own former first lady Kimberly Guilfoyle. My cell phone started blowing up even before she was halfway through her “Evita” performance.

It was reality TV at its best.

Kim Kardashian, watch out.

Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com