Donald J. Trump is not one to bow down to the inevitable. He had already in 2016, interrupted the arc of progress but even with all signs pointing to him being deposited into the dustbin of history he veers from one strategy to another to avoid his fate as decreed by the Gods and more significantly the electorate. As the election day progresses, although he proclaims it is going to be rigged by the US Postal Service, who presumably are part of the Deep State and in Jeff Bezos’s pocket, he still is doing whatever he can to win.
With the economy in tatters, its plunge having been precipitated by his disastrous management of the coronavirus, the wall being a bit of a dud, with America being the polecat and laughing stock of the world and with him losing control of the Republican Party legislators, he has changed his line of attack dramatically. He maintains that the real threat to the country is rampant anarchy in the Democratic City streets. The protestors were terrorists and he was the “Law and Order President”, in case you forgot.
IT’S LAW AND ORDER - STUPID
Lest there was any doubt as to where Trump was going he tweeted out again and again three words - LAW AND ORDER. What was ominous about his and his sidekicks interpretation of that imperative is that it smacks of totalitarianism and the term “Stormtroopers” has been liberally used. In addition The Daily Beast maintained that the time has come to use the F word in relation to his policies. That F word is fascism.
The Law and Order issue really is the bottom of the barrel as a policy to run on in 2020. It worked for Nixon in 1968 but America literally was on fire with the Vietnam protests. It barely makes the lists of the priorities of what is uppermost in the electorate’s minds. Health care especially with the coronavirus raging is number one closely followed by the economy and jobs. (It is no use blaming the virus because for four months he pretended it was a “nothing burger”).
No one is obsessing on violence and unrest at the moment. There is almost a consensus as to what was elegantly and scientifically proven by Steven Pinker, in his tome, “The Better Angels of our Nature”, namely that violence has dramatically decreased in America. The protests have all but died down except in Portland and Seattle. But Trump had two strings to his bow the “Black Lives Matter” protestors that were burning America and the violence in the streets of the cities of the Democratic States. So he set out to prove that “he alone” can save America from being overrun by gangs and the anarchistic leftist agitators ,whom the Democrats unconditionally backed.
What Trump also didn’t compute was that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe in peaceful protests and the citizens in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida to name but a few don’t give two hoots that it is unsafe to go into the South side gang neighborhoods of Chicago. Trump is going all out to convince them that they are wrong As there is really no Law and Order crisis in America he is about to create one, one way or another. Maybe his “control efforts” will create a chaotic situation. The evidence is that since he has unlawfully intervened in Portland the violence has increased there exponentially.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER ONE IN LAW AND ORDER - LAFAYETTE SQUARE AND THE PHOTOGRAPH
The Commander in Chief stood in front of a peaceful protest flanked by his Consiglieri Barr, the Chairman of the Military Chiefs of Staff. Mark Milley in battle fatigues, and the usual flunkies. This was way back on June 1 so Trump and Barr felt comfortable to promote the theory that the anarchistic protestors was stopping the POTUS from posing before a church with a bible for a photo op. Armed forces in riot gear unceremoniously cleared the peaceful George Floyd protestors. Implicit in this move was more than a ridiculous photograph of a heathen holding a bible in front of a church that did not welcome his supposed symbolism. There was the “Law and Order” President instituting Law and Order.
All hell broke loose across America and the world with comparisons to his good friend Boris who had also cleared the front of the Kremlin from protestors. What put an end to this move by Trump and Barr was that it hadn’t even been thought through nor had they bothered to caucus support for it from the people that mattered.
What really resonated was the response from the dramatis personae that were central to the maneuver who realized they had been duped. The Secretary of Defense made it quite clear that the military would not be involved in internal political disputes while the humiliation of Trump from General Milley was devastating. Just before Trump was to address the West Point graduates, having needlessly risked their health to attend a public graduation, the Chairman of the Military Chief of Staffs publicly apologized to the enlisted men for being dragged into a political photo op. He stated that his presence was a “mistake and created the perception that the military was involved in domestic politics”. He stated that he should have not been there.
The one constant of Trump and Barr is that they cannot be shamed. They just move on and Portland was the next stop.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER TWO IN LAW AND ORDER - PORTLAND OREGON
Portland Oregon has a population of round about six hundred thousand, about the same number of officially diagnosed coronavirus cases at the time of Trump’s big move in Portland. Once again he was about to exhibit that “he alone” could maintain “Law and Order” in the country which was at the brink of being run over by anarchists. His options no longer included the military so he had to rely on the law officers that he had under his and the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security control to provide the muscle to take on the protestors in the far North Western corner of America.
Portland has a long history of protesting in a country that had been born in protest. The citizenry anger against the George Floyd murder had not abated after fifty days. This was the ideal place to restore “Law and Order” and prevent America from being overrun by terrorists. So the group of Federal law agents most loyal to the POTUS from the Immigration and Custom’s Units were sent in. If you can lock children in cages you can handle some left wing flakes. Ostensibly they were there to protect Federal Buildings but they tear gassed and assaulted protestors. They even tear gassed the Mayor of Portland. They wore unmarked uniforms, refused to answer questions as to their names and what law agency they represented. They whisked protestors away by force to unmarked SUV’s simply just releasing several of them later There were casualties broken bones and the like but law enforcement has to do what it has to do.
A setback to the public perception to the Trump narrative was the formation of a line of interlocking of white suburban moms who put themselves between Trump’s militia and the diverse group of protestors. One FaceBook call for volunteers brought a spontaneous outpouring of over five thousand willing to join in. Within two days they were joined by a line of Vets who were prepared to interpose themselves as well.
Once again the condemnations were instantaneous, widespread and unequivocal. Even the United Human Rights Commission condemned the United States Government for their assault on peaceful protests. All this at the same time that the pompous Secretary of State Pompeo was condemning the Chinese for their Hong Kong clampdown.
The American legal consensus was what he had done in Portland was illegal. Trump had marched in with an anonymous force that was not invited by the city, county or state legal offices. To quote Judge Napolitano, the Fox News legal analyst, “Feds may not deploy police or military domestically unless the Governor requests it”. Then retweeting a Washington Post story Napolitano argued, “This is how totalitarianism begins”., He continued further that the Feds’ acts are unconstitutional because they are arresting people without probable cause.
The question is whether or not Trump et al care. They are on a mission and they had in fact incensed the mob so they had indeed to effect some Law and Order.
EXPERIMENT NUMBER THREE YOU NEED A LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENT TO CLEAR UP THE CRIME IN THE DEMOCRATIC CITIES.
Some cities have been battling to clear up local crime for decades. Trump following the Portland misadventure maintained he would now cooperate with the local authorities. He even reassured Sean Hannity of Fox News that he would only intervene if invited. However that reasonableness seemed to be contradicted by his statement the very next day that he had sixty thousand law enforcement officers to ready deploy. Whatever all this mumbo jumbo meant he was still going to Chicago with two hundred officers.
Chicago on its South side has had a decades’ old problem with gang fighting resulting in high death rates. There has been police training, changing of Police Chiefs and an increase in the minority make up of the thirteen thousand police force as some of the efforts to combat this blot on the City. The new African American female Mayor has made resolving the situation a priority. Initially, tongue in cheek she said would not oppose “the help” if there was cooperation and that their actions would be coordinated with the local police. Nothing has been forthcoming from Trump other than his contribution would be two hundred law enforcers, about a hundred who are already in Chicago and will be redeployed. It is banal to point out the insanity of this all
Whatever is going to happen in Chicago and all the other Democratic cities only time will tell. but Trump has not honed down the rhetoric. In order to reinforce his role as a Law and Order President he claimed on July 22 that he was going to send Federal Agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico because violent anarchists together with radical left Democrats are responsible for a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence - “This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end”. Insanity is a masterpiece of understatement, as even Trump, although he can repeat five words in a row, appears to have lost it.
The only conclusion is that one way or another he seems determined to pursue this Law and Order theme together with conspiracy theories that foreign countries are printing ballot papers with a cross next to Biden’s name.
EXPERIMENT FOUR - ONLY A LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENT SUPPORTS THE POLICE.
Mike Pence is off to Pennsylvania with the objective of fraternizing with the police. This is part of the narrative that the Trump campaign is masterminding that if you vote for Biden you are for the eradication of the police. The Defund the Police campaign that is a popular slogan of the protestors is being thrust upon Biden’s shoulders. While the debate really centers around using some of the money for mental health and or domestic emergencies that the police are called too Biden has wisely rather than clarify the matter come out against it, period.
TRUMP BY THE NUMBERS HANGING IN THERE - ONLY JUST
However as long as he has anything to excite his base they hang in. And as long as they still tell the pollsters that they are going to vote for him he reckons, with voter suppression and the mail and the illegal immigrants ….. he can once gain snatch the rabbit out of the bag.
Although about forty percent still are going to vote for him there is a disconnect between those numbers when nearly seventy percent support Biden to manage the pandemic rather than him with a similar number believing the Black Lives Matter protest movement would be handled more constructively by the former Vice President. In every other parameter Trump’s figures are between thirty and thirty five percent with the exception of economic management where he is barely ahead of his challenger.
There are plenty of factors to make those cult supporters to let go - Trump changing his policy on the virus and masks, the worsening economic and health crises, the beginnings of open disagreements with him and the Republican legislators, some of whom are fighting against one another. Then of course the very fact that he is spending his time on a crisis that doesn’t exist and even if it did does not impact the voters in the swing states. That rather than applying his mind fully to the health and economic crises may well lose him votes.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Trump is still convinced that dividing the country is his path to victory. His strategy at the moment is through Law and Order! This is a dangerous strategy because it can lead to ongoing violence as evidenced in Portland.
Any hope he had of the military backing him has been dashed. He can hardly order the other miscellaneous law agents to secure the country for him after the rigged election.
The one nagging worry is the section of his cult that he labelled the “second amendment people” who he claimed would have been the only response to a Hillary rigged election win. What has really surprised Jay H. Ell is their absence in the sixty day “Black Lives Matter Protest” and the dismantling of Confederate statues. Where are Trump’s “Good people” that were at Charlottesville. Perhaps they have more sense than their fearless leader and know what is inside the KoolAid.
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