Trump won’t disguise his thuggish instincts
President Donald Trump speaking on Friday on Long Island told a gathering of police officers: “I said please don’t be too nice — like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head ... I said you can take the hand away, OK?”
That’s not a trash-talking guy with a Confederate battle flag. That’s the head of the executive branch (charged with implementing the laws), who has sworn to uphold the Constitution. This is the president who holds office at a time when police relations with minority communities have been rubbed raw, police shootings of suspects (or other deaths while in police custody, as was the case Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore) have become all too frequent (although a tiny percentage of the total number of police encounters with suspects) and his own anti-immigrant policies have set minority communities on edge.
Trump is happy to throw a match into a river of gasoline flowing through our country.
This disgraceful wink-wink to police officers reflects the president’s bully-boy outlook and his complete lack of empathy for others. He still seems utterly unaware — or unconcerned — about the adverse effect his words have on others. One day it’s summarily tweeting that he will expel all transgender personnel from the military; the next it’s making police brutality into a joke. Not to mention bringing his brand of coarse rhetoric, complete with insulting remarks about Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama, to the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts of America leadership was forced to disclaim its intent to politicize the gathering and apologize to the scouts.
Likewise, after his grotesque comment about police brutality, the Suffolk County Police Department was forced to issue a defensive statement distancing itself from the president’s dismaying language. “The Suffolk County Police Department has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners, and violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously. As a department, we do not and will not tolerate ‘rough(ing)’ up prisoners.”
In other words, the president is unfit to talk to the Boy Scouts and to police officers. He’s a rotten role model who overtly incites bad behavior (just as he did in the campaign when he encouraged violence against protesters).
Reaction to the president’s comments on policing were widely condemned outside right-wing circles.
Jonathan Blanks, from the libertarian Cato Institute, did not mince words:
“The president’s comments are disgraceful and anathema to responsible policing and the Rule of Law. Causing intentional injury to a handcuffed suspect is not only against police procedure, but is a federal crime for which police officers have been sent to prison. What’s worse, the reaction of the crowd of officers should strike fear into the heart of every parent on Long Island, particularly those of black and Hispanic young men, who fit the stereotypical description of the gang members President Trump described.
“In the name of law and order, the president made a mockery of the Rule of Law in his call for illegal violence against presumptively innocent suspects. It is a shameful day for the presidency and police agencies across the country should condemn the president’s irresponsible and indefensible comments in the strongest possible terms.”
Unfortunately, we don’t see such outrage from right-wing groups ostensibly concerned with the erosion of values and rule of law. Concerned Women for America? Nothing. The Family Research Council? Of course not. The National Review? Silence. Right-wing legal groups (e.g., Federalist Society, Alliance Defending Freedom) were mute. There a long list of staunchly right-wing groups and individuals who were quick to condemn each and every one of Obama’s utterances about police-community relations. Will they speak out now that the president is calling for police brutality? Don’t hold your breath.
With Trump, right-wing entities are giving up the pretense of devotion to their stated purpose (e.g., family values, a color-blind society, Constitutional government, free market economics); they’ve been morally and intellectually corrupted by Trump and a movement that cannot indict its own side (no matter how repugnant the conduct or behavior at issue). They’ve become Trump apologists and defenders, which often means undermining family values, Constitutional government, free markets, etc.
In their spasm of tribalism they’ve lost track of the principles that once motivated them. Those very principles can be destroyed — if the destroying is being done by one of their own. In fact, they’ll even join in to cheer the nihilist-in-chief.