As polls continue to show President Trump trailing by wide margins nationally and in critical battleground states, he has adopted an increasingly severe tone in his attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 22: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to journalists during a news conference ... [+] 
"The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article. Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better," Trump tweeted along with a New York Post op-ed slamming Biden's housing proposal as "disastrous."
The tweet comes as the latest in a cascade of recent dystopian messaging accusing Biden of threatening the safety and livelihoods of middle-class Americans.
A shocking ad from the Trump campaign released earlier this week called "Break In" depicts an elderly woman failing to get ahold of the police during a home invasion, with the tagline "you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America."
Last week, the Trump campaign sent a text to supporters claiming Biden wants to "ABOLISH the American way of life," calling on supporters to donate and "DEFEND OUR COUNTRY."
Trump also held several official events at the White House last week to slam Biden, claiming that Biden's plan for zero carbon emissions for all new buildings by 2030 would "mean no windows, no nothing," and asserting that a Biden presidency would lead to an increase of crime.
"Our entire economy and our very way of life are threatened by Biden's plan to transform our nation and subjugate our communities through the blunt force instrument of federal regulation," Trump declared at an event focused on cutting regulations last Thursday.
This darkened tone comes as Trump has continued to steadily decline in the polls. Biden leads nationally by 9 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, up from a 4-point lead in May. A new Quinnipiac poll also showed Biden's lead in crucial battleground state Florida growing from 4 points in April to a whopping 13 points now.
Trump's recent attacks don't appear to have moved the needle in the polls. Biden is increasingly favored by voters on the economy, while multiple polls have shown him leading Trump by healthy margins on crime, policing and law and order.
The "Break In" ad features a clip from Hannity in which the Fox News host misleadingly claims "Joe Biden said he is 'absolutely' on board with defunding the police," despite Joe Biden explicitly stating his opposition to such a proposal. Nonetheless, the ad is all but immune to any legal challenge. "There is no national law against false political speech," wrote Forbes contributor Mark McCarthy. "The Federal Trade Commission regulates false advertising, holding commercial advertisers responsible for misleading and deceptive ads. But this does not cover political advertising. The Lanham Act creates a Federal cause of action for competitors to bring cases against each other for damages from false advertising, but this does not extend to the political arena."
Biden campaign rapid response director Andrew Bates on Sunday mocked Trump's statement that Biden would destroy the "American way of life," tweeting "this 50,000th reboot of our anti-Biden strategy is ingenious: disregard how Trump's gotten almost 140,000 people killed - Biden won't keep you safe!"
I am a news desk reporter covering politics and the 2020 election. I have previously worked for MSNBC and Chronogram Magazine. I attended Vassar College and the London
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