Donald Trump says he stands for law and order. He stands for neither. His entire life has been lawless. He has been accused of sexual assault by a long list of women. He destroyed contractors who built his properties. He abused his pardon power to free Roger Stone and other convicted criminal friends. That’s what criminals do, not people who stand for law.
Order of a crushing, undemocratic kind is one of Trump’s passions. He’s just not very good at it. His mishandling of the pandemic is a study in disorder. His dog-whistle politics have invited chaos and disorder from white supremacists who are now our greatest domestic terror threat. We witnessed this yet again when a young Trump supporter white supremacist killed two protesters and shot a third in Wisconsin.
If Trump believed in law or order, he would have immediately condemned that shooter and the police officer who fired seven bullets into Jacob Blake’s back. But those shooters are white and Jacob Blake is Black, and Trump made no mention of these lawless incidents of gun violence. Instead, he tweeted that he would send federal forces into Wisconsin presumably to go after unarmed protesters.
When Trump and his lackeys talk about “law and order,” they are using code words for white supremacy. Trumpians are not the first politicians to use that phrase to justify unleashing violence and terror on largely Black communities. Lee Atwater and another lawless president, Richard Nixon, famously admitted they employed the phrase “law and order” to racially divide the country, to justify repressive policing, and to push people into prison. The legacy: America became the most incarcerated country in the world, where we disproportionately put Black and brown people in jail who don’t belong there. Before that, leaders used the phrase to justify slave patrols and lynchings.
Trump foments lawlessness and disorder in this country, and the victims are largely Black people and others protesting to protect them as in Wisconsin. It was Trump supporters, the Proud Boys, who showed up with weapons in Portland shortly after he sent in federal law enforcement officials who kidnapped protestors off the street. It was a Trump supporter, Cesar Sayoc, who sent pipe bombs to prominent Democrats. Trump supporters attacked a homeless man in Boston, and committed a massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue. ABC News found at least 54 cases where assailants invoked Trump while committing violent acts or threatening violence, and that was just up until last May.
Of course, Trump is not the only Republican to feign a commitment to law and order but ensure we don’t have safety. This is the party that refuses to have sensible gun regulation, passed a law to stop the Center for Disease Control from studying gun violence in 1996, and pushed a culture of community disinvestment that has resulted in budget shortfalls met with cuts in social spending and violence prevention initiatives that work. But Trump is now the party’s leader, and he eschews safety measures in favor of disorder more than any politician in America right now.
For those of us who are progressive prosecutors and support a movement for criminal justice reform deeply rooted in equality, the phrase “law and order” uttered by a president hellbent on destroying our legal institutions while he steers us toward chaos is especially galling. We took our oaths to seek justice and to uphold the Constitution he reviles. We and the movement that elected us have already pushed back, reminding him the law applies to him and to the government just as it applies to everyone else. Expect him to attack the movement we lift up for good reason. We represent an existential threat to the lawlessness and disorder that define him and his failed political party.
From now until November 3, Trump and his supporters will run ads designed to frighten the public. They will make speeches claiming that crime is rampant and everyone is at risk, even as crime is falling across America. Even this year, as a global pandemic rages through our communities, creating more unemployment and greater instability, total crime is down, and America is much safer than it ever has been before – despite its current national spike in gun violence compared to recent years. Despite actual facts, the party’s strategy is clear: terrify voters, largely those who live in the suburbs and in rural parts of America, by creating a false image of cities as dangerous cesspools where people with guns are allowed to run amok.
Don’t be fooled by Trump’s election cycle scare tactics and dog whistles. Vote him out. Vote his lackeys out. Vote like the laws that guarantee your freedom and safety depend on it. Vote for the order that only justice and equality can restore. Vote like your life depends on it. It does.
Aramis Ayala, State Attorney, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Florida; Wesley Bell, Prosecuting Attorney, St. Louis County; Chesa Boudin, District Attorney, San Francisco, California; John Creuzot, District Attorney, Dallas County, Texas; Kim Foxx, Cook County State’s Attorney, Illinois; Kimberly Gardner, Circuit Attorney, City of St. Louis; Joe Gonzales, District Attorney, Bexar County, Texas; Mark Gonzalez; District Attorney, Nueces County, Texas; John Hummel, District Attorney, Deschutes County, Oregon; Lawrence Krasner; District Attorney, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Stephanie Morales, Commonwealth’s Attorney, City of Portsmouth, Virginia; Marilyn J. Mosby, State’s Attorney, Baltimore City, Maryland; Rachael Rollins, District Attorney, Suffolk County, Massachusetts; Mike Schmidt, District Attorney, Multnomah County, Oregon.