Is Trump’s law and order commercial a change in narrative?
Trump’s commercial – at least his July 4th commercial – reflects a return to the Nixon strategy: that all Americans must be scared of social disorder and the face of that social disorder is not by definition Black.
On the weekend of the celebration of the fourth of July, the Trump campaign released a new campaign commercial. On one level it was nothing new for a Republican presidential ad. It was a law and order ad. But on another level it showed a possible sea change in the Republican narrative on crime and social disorder.
The commercial begins with an empty police station and a phone on the desk. The phone on the desk rings, with no one to answer it, and a recorded message comes on. The voice says there is no one here because the police department has been defunded. The recording tells the caller if this call is regarding a rape, murder, or home invasion to hit a number and in five days the police will respond.
Visually, the commercial shows white anarchists burning, looting, and breaking into businesses and stores. In the voice over, when the recording says if you are calling regarding a rape, the commercial shows a white female anarchist breaking a window. Then the commercial shows the fires that occurred in the Washington, D.C. Park with an overlay of President Trump’s face. The text says, “You will not be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”
This commercial followed a commercial that was running for about a month in which it shows Blacks in prison and the narration says Biden passed the 1994 crime bill. The commercial shows Biden saying, “We punish everything including jay walking in this bill.” The voice over says that Blacks have suffered under this crime bill in which Blacks were incarcerated for minor offenses and even if Biden does not remember his act incarcerated Blacks, we do.
Law and order commercials from Republican candidates date back to Nixon in 1968. That 1968 commercial began by showing pictures, with ominous music, of social disorder and protest. The narration said that regarding civil rights, the first civil right is the right to be free from domestic violence and that political change cannot come from riots. The commercial showed pictures of white protesters, some bloody, and police in riot gear in decimated city streets with burning buildings. Nixon’s narration stated that in America, implying under him, we will have order in the United States.
This commercial was the standard until the famous law and order Willie Horton and the prison turnstile commercials were released during the George H.W. Bush campaign in 1988. In both commercials, Black faces were used as perpetrators of crime stating that under a Dukakis presidency, criminals would be released from prison to rape and pillage America.
From the 1980s through the first decade of the new century, when crime was discussed in political discourse, it was discussed within the context of Blacks as criminals as well as victims of other Blacks. This is the famous Black on Black crime narrative. The Willie Horton commercial was designed to take advantage of white fear of crime and especially Black criminals attacking whites.
The reason this narrative worked, aside from its historical use dating back decades into the 19th century, is that it takes advantage of the fact that people don’t know that crime is intraracial.
FBI data has been consistent that in regard to crime, the majority of crime against whites are committed by whites (80%) and the same is true that Blacks are victims of other Blacks (88%).
What has changed in this age old narrative is that Trump’s commercials do not rely on the subtle racism that the Bush era commercials did, but are reminiscent of the Nixon commercial.
Both Nixon and Trump present social disorder as the focus, not crime caused by Blacks. Both commercials imply America, all Americans, are in danger from anarchist gone wild; not Blacks gone wild.
His commercial on the Biden crime bill asserts that the bill incarcerated Blacks for minor crimes! Which is an injustice! In other words, the commercial admits that the Republican led bill (with Clinton’s support) unfairly criminalized Blacks – an admission Republicans avoided and disputed for more than two decades!
This is no small change. For the last half of the 20th century, Republicans (and under Clinton, the democrats) used crime for political advantage and linked Blacks to crime.
Trump’s commercial – at least his July 4th commercial – reflects a return to the Nixon strategy: that all Americans must be scared of social disorder and the face of that social disorder is not by definition Black.
As the fall comes and the 2020 election battle intensifies, it will be interesting to see if this change in standard Republican theory and commercial artistry – that social disorder and crime does not have a Black face per se – takes hold.
Arthur Garrison is an associate professor of criminal justice at Kutztown University and author of the upcoming book, “Chained to the System: The History and Politics of Black Incarceration in America.”