Donald Trump has promised to send federal officials to several Democrat-led US cities in what critics say is an attempt to play the “law and order” card to jumpstart his reelection bid.
The president’s threat came after a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, which involved unmarked cars and unidentified forces in camouflage.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump identified New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland as places that need federal agents, describing the mayors of those cities as “liberal Democrats.”
“We are sending the police,” he said. “We cannot let this happen to the cities.”
Highlighting Chicago, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend, Trump turned to attack his electoral rival, Joe Biden. “And you add it up over the summer, this is worse than Afghanistan, by far. This is worse than anything anyone has ever seen. All led by the same Liberal Democrats. And you know what? If Biden entered, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And we are not going to let him go to hell. “
Fighting Biden in opinion polls, Trump has leaned toward a dark and divisive issue reminiscent of fellow Republican Richard Nixon in 1968. “I am your president of law and order,” he declared in the Rose Garden of the White House on June 1. Shortly before, park police and National Guard troops fired tear gas and chased peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square in order to organize a photo shoot outside a historic church.
Since then, he has repeatedly and falsely accused Biden of planning to “remove the police” and effectively turn over cities and suburbs to violent criminals. The conservative Fox News network, meanwhile, has been emphasizing coverage of violence in the city center rather than the coronavirus pandemic.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Policy Center, said: “It took him longer than he thought he would begin to emphasize law and order.” But I bet it starts at the convention. It will be one of the key themes of the convention. ‘These crazy liberals are causing trouble again.’ “
Such a strategy is “certainly a candidate” to explain the new offensive in the main cities, Sabato added. However, I will tell you what it really is. It is an unequivocal clue to what a second Trump term will look like. He will not hesitate to do any of this.
The Trump administration sent federal officials to Portland after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the George Floyd police murder in Minneapolis in May. Last week, videos showed unidentified federal personnel pulling people off the street and driving them away in black minivans.
Acting Commissioner for US Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan defended the actions in a tweet Sunday: “Law and Order, a cornerstone of American society, is under siege in Portland.”
On Monday, the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that the Department of Homeland Security is making plans to deploy around 150 officers to the city where police defending a statue clashed with protesters on Friday.
Lori Lightfoot, Mayor of Chicago and Democrat, told the Associated Press: “I have great concerns about that in particular, given the record in the city of Portland. I have spoken to the mayor of Portland. [and] we don’t need federal agents without any insignia to take people off the street and hold them, I think, illegally. “
The issue has exposed the binary election for voters in November. Democrats, warning of a threat to civil liberties, asked Chad Wolf, acting secretary of homeland security, to resign. Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia said Wolf is “monitoring the authoritarian abuses that betray our fundamental principles and would horrify our nation’s founders.”
He added: “Ordering the occupation of US cities, seeking escalation of violence, and intentionally risking American lives for peaceful protests and graffiti is unfathomable and unacceptable. Secretary Wolf must resign immediately or be fired.
House of Representatives committee chairs Jerry Nadler, Adam Smith and Bennie Thompson said in a joint statement: “The Trump Administration continues to arm federal law enforcement for its own agenda. As we saw in Lafayette [Square]Instead of supporting and protecting the American people, we are witnessing the oppression of peaceful protesters by our own government.
“They don’t just do their action[s] they undermine civil rights and spread fear and discord across the country, but in this case, they stain the reputations of members of our Armed Forces who were not involved. “
And Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wrote on Twitter: “They will have to arrest me first if they think they are going to illegally lay hands on my residents.”
The sinister events in Portland have renewed fears about the progressive authoritarianism of the Trump White House.
Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, has called for peaceful civil disobedience. “Stormtrooper’s tactics have no place in a free society,” he said. “The apparent deployment of the military for the application of national law violates the posse comitatus act in the absence of a genuine insurrection, and the claim that such a deployment is really necessary to preserve order does not meet the laughter test.
“The administration is violating the first amendment on a regular basis now, jeopardizing all of our freedoms.”
