Trump wants to be the ‘law and order’ candidate — but his failings in office make him a hypocrite

Kim Sengupta, The Independent

Donald Trump has the highest disapproval rating of any US president in recent history at this point in office, at 54 per cent. Joe Biden leads him by 10 per cent in recent polls. But it would be unwise to write off Trump in the coming election, just as it would be unwise to underestimate the power of fear.

The president’s inflammatory tweets during the current protests, the use of tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators so that he can make his way to a photo opportunity, the threat to use military force on the American people, and the usual untruths he has peddled have led to intense criticism.

The broad and constant theme of Trump’s tweets now — as the regular sign off shows — is “LAW&ORDER”. He will, without doubt, present himself as the law and order candidate in the election, portraying the Democrats as weak, or even supportive of, lawlessness and crime. The scenes of violence, in this context, are helpful in that regard. The New York Times reported “some in the president’s circle see the escalations as a political boon” — a view echoed by others.

The theory is that as there are more instances of looting and arson, daily skirmishes in the streets, the sympathy and understanding shown to the protests would turn to unease and apprehension among those already deeply worried about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on their livelihood.

Trump has focused on denigrating the protestors, calling them “thugs”, “criminals” and “anarchists”. He has declared that he will designate Antifa a terrorist organisation, something which would be extremely difficult to achieve in law given that the group is a loose alliance of activists. But Trump and his supporters will be demanding to know whether Biden and the Democrats support banning an organisation which the right-wing media have repeatedly accused of being dangerous and subversive.

Trump has already gone down the law and order route before.

“In this race for the White House, I am the law and order candidate. When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country,” he declared in 2016. The “this American carnage stops here” line in his inaugural address was about the loss of American jobs and vanishing industries, but is also thought to refer to crime. George W Bush’s overall reaction to the speech, if one recalls, was “that was some weird s***”.

Trump has also threatened to unleash the military against the protesters. But this has backfired to a large extent. A number of highly respected former commanders, including James Mattis, the former defence secretary who resigned, John Allen, the former commander in Afghanistan and Mike Mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of defence, coming out with damning and unprecedented criticism of a president.

They accused Trump of ordering unprovoked attacks on peaceful demonstrators by the police and the national guard, trying to dismantle democratic structures and introduce authoritarianism, and attempting to politicise the country’s armed forces.

The warning that Trump is not only unfit to be in office, but that he is actually a danger to the country, may not affect the true hardcore of his support. But it is likely to be listened to by floating voters who took a punt on Trump in 2016, as well as mainstream Republicans who are dismayed by what has been happening under the current administration.

The response of Trump — who avoided the Vietnam draft — to criticism from the military has been to insult them in his tweets, and accuse them of being overrated. He has also claimed he is tougher than them. That, according to polls, has not gone down well.

Last October, Trump claimed success in his law and order drive, telling the International Association of Chiefs of Police: “We have taken bold action to reverse the tide of violence”. It is true that crime figures had dropped in the previous three years. But that had been the trend for almost two decades, apart from a sudden spike between 2015 and 2016. So domestic crime figures should not hand him victory.