America's unrest sets up battle for nation's soul between Trump and Biden

He is tearing at social scars to revive a presidency humbled by a pandemic and an economic disaster, and he seems set on creating the dystopian fight between order and chaos he has long evoked.

Until now, the national presidential campaign of the 77-year-old former vice president Biden had seemed like a placeholder.

He had even referred to himself as a bridge to a new generation of Democrats and there was not much aspirational about a bid rooted almost exclusively in kicking Trump out of the White House.

But the suddenly critical political circumstances offer him the chance to give a lifelong quest for the presidency the more soaring meaning that it has always lacked.

The presumptive Democratic nominee has reacted to the changed dynamic of a campaign previously kept in hibernation by lockdowns, warning that citizens cannot "let our rage consume us." Energizing a campaign initially based on the uninspiring prospect of an old order restoration, Biden Tuesday presented himself as an avatar of racial justice and national healing.

Both candidates understand that presidential campaigns turn on sudden, unexpected events that embed themselves in America's story.

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For Biden to prevail and turn Trump into a one-term President, he must now become the vehicle for across-the-board national revulsion over Trump's rhetoric and tactics.

He is betting that suburban voters disgusted that he ignored the coronavirus pandemic until it was too late, will swing right as he invokes the specter of lawlessness and race riots and social turmoil.

"Now (Biden) he pretends to have the answers," Trump tweeted on Tuesday.

The implication is that the times call for a strongman not a conciliator.

A law and order crisis also offers Trump a chance to reestablish the dynamic of his 2016 campaign -- that he is the outspoken bull in a china shop who slays political correctness but who, unlike the media and East Coast elites, understands heartland instincts.

As a recent Trump campaign video put it: "President Trump's not always polite.

But Tony Perkins, a top social conservative and president of the Family Research Council, channeled Trump's warnings about looters and rioters, warning their acts were "an offense to humanity and a crime against God."

Biden's sudden opening

Biden's speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday pleased Democrats beginning to worry he was not meeting the moment that could define 2020.

"I won't traffic in fear and division.

I'll do my job and I'll take responsibility -- I won't blame others," Biden said.

In anchoring his campaign on the turmoil of recent days, Biden can honor the African American voters who revived his almost failed primary campaign in South Carolina and the moderate Democrats and independents seeking peace and freedom from the bedlam of presidential tweeting.

Suddenly, a national father figure projecting empathy distilled from his own searing personal tragedies might be the man for moment.