I've discussed some of these things in isolated tweets or threads, but I want to provide a more comprehensive critique. First, perhaps following the first black President left Trump in a difficult position, even though Obama had his own challenges, including the incidents of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and the 2015 Baltimore riots. But Trump has responded in rather perplexing ways that defy rationalization. To give notorious examples, Trump seemed to go out of his way to defend his alt-right supporters (arguing there are good people on both sides), even in the aftermath of the Charlottesville murder, where a white supremacist, Alex Fields, drove into a crowd of counter-protesters (to a Unite the Right rally), killing one and injuring about 30 others. He went after Kaepernick and other athletes protesting the national anthem, arguing they should be fired. He has also gone out of his way to defend "beautiful" Confederate statues being removed. He's praised "stop and frisk", a controversial policy particularly disparately exercised against urban blacks, arguing for its nationwide adoption. He's pandered for cop support, argued in support of tough tactics, like rough rides, such as the one leading to the death of an unsecured Freddie Gray in custody.
All this is not so surprising given his campaigns and recommended tough tactics with protesters, suggesting he wouldn't mind if they got roughed up a bit on their way out; one notorious incident was when a sleeping homeless Latino in the Boston area got pissed on and hit with a metal pipe by two Trumpkin brothers. In some cases, Trump has suggested that he would pay legal fees for supporters attacking others.
I'm not exactly sure why Trump does this; I think it energizes his base when the politically correct progressives attack him. But let's be clear: Trump has been pandering to the police and their unions for some time, e.g., charging that 2016 foe Hillary Clinton was anti-police; in 2017, he gave a speech to police where he argued the deck was stacked against the police, blamed unsympathetic city leadership, and suggested the police shouldn't be "too nice", e.g., in ensuring that arrested ones' heads were protected when forcing them into a police car. Former AG Sessions scaled back investigations into purported instances of police brutality.
I think Whitehead's post makes several key points, including multiple tweets I've recently made criticizing qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, etc.:
Redditt Hudson, a former St. Louis police officer, has been quoted as saying, "There is one criminal justice system for citizens — especially black and brown ones — and another for police in the United States." ...
Unfortunately, Trump and [former] U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, head of the Justice Department (much like their predecessors) appear to have few qualms about giving police the green light to kill, shoot, taser, abuse, and steal from American citizens in the name of so-called law and order...This is the principle at the heart of 'law and order' rhetoric: The authorities themselves are bound by neither....
Indeed, not only are cops protected from most charges of wrongdoing — whether it’s shooting unarmed citizens (including children and old people), raping and abusing young women, falsifying police reports, trafficking drugs, or soliciting sex with minors — but even on the rare occasions when they are fired for misconduct, it’s only a matter of time before they get re-hired again...According to the New York Times, "Some experts say thousands of law enforcement officers may have drifted from police department to police department even after having been fired, forced to resign or convicted of a crime."
Much of the "credit" for shielding these rogue cops goes to influential police unions and laws providing for qualified immunity, police contracts that "provide a shield of protection to officers accused of misdeeds and erect barriers to residents complaining of abuse," state and federal laws that allow police to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing, and rampant cronyism among government bureaucrats...A growing number of states are adopting Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBoR) — written by police unions — which provides police officers accused of a crime with special due process rights and privileges not afforded to the average citizen. In other words, the LEOBoR protects police officers from being treated as we are treated during criminal investigations.
Whether it’s at the federal level with President Trump, Congress and the judiciary, or at the state and local level, those deciding whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges...Now, clearly blacks, who make up about 13% of the US population, have legitimate concerns about the criminal justice system, with (in the past) incarceration rates up to 5 times or more the rate of white state prisoners. And this is in a country which has 25% of the world's prisoners, but only 5% of its population.
I do think Trump resents his lack of support among blacks (he got 4% of black female and 13% of black male votes in 2016). Before the COVID-19 recession, Trump boasted the lowest unemployment rates in decades, especially some of the lowest rates among blacks on record.
Now how did Trump respond to the George Floyd murder? I don't follow Trump on Twitter although I've probably replied to a few dozen, mostly critical, usually when they trend or appear in my feed from one of those I follow. I also haven't scanned all White House releases, if any, in the aftermath. But from what I've seen, Trump has primarily termed Floyd's murder "sad and tragic", expressed condolences to his surviving family members and ordered an expedited investigation by the FBI and the Department of Justice. (At least he hasn't gone where some right-wingers would, blaming the victim, suggesting that Floyd's lack of cooperation with the police was the key factor resulting in his death.) To be honest, I never saw in Trump the kind of empathetic character that seemed to come easier to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Obama. Trump is always demonizing his opposition, insisting on unconditional loyalty from his minions. I really didn't expect him to walk back years of supporting rough treatment of suspects and identifying the police being the "real victims", to point to a pattern of blacks who have died under custody (Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Floyd and others). Does anyone really doubt that Trump, who doesn't care if a black suspect's head bounces off the door frame getting into a police car, has an issue with a policeman kneeling on someone's neck?
As I resume this essay, there was a Twitter trend overnight involving an exchange between media host Glenn Beck and black conservative personality Candace Owens. While Beck provided lip service to the fact Floyd's murder was unambiguously wrong, he thought that the Left was making Floyd out to be a moral icon and decided that it was newsworthy to investigate whether Floyd's past was worthy of such status. Owens, whose skin color makes her less vulnerable to dismissive charges of racism from the Left, is willing to expose particularly unsavory allegations of Floyd's criminal record. All of this is a repulsive twist on blaming the victim, speaking ill of a dead man behind his back when he can't defend himself, as I tweeted. So why am I discussing this kerfuffle? Trump retweeted this exchange. It was bad enough that Trump's response to the tragedy was minimalist and "phone it in" predictable; Trump's embrace of Owens' personal attack on Floyd demonstrates the emptiness of his minimal expression of sympathy.
Far from inspirational leadership in the aftermath of the Floyd murder, Trump seems to be stoking divisiveness, famously quoting George Wallace's "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" in response to the late 1960's race riots, which ran into a Twitter firestorm, with the tweet in question violating Twitter's community safety rules. (Let's be clear: if I had posted Trump's content, I would have banned years ago; I myself have been suspended twice over the past 16 months or so over more trivial issues like using the politically incorrect term 'retard', which was hypocritical since thousands of other tweets used the same word.) Trump was so pissed off at Twitter tagging some tweets (e.g., hyping voting by mail fraud) to debunking content that he wrote an unconstitutional executive order trying to strip provider liability protection. Trump has conflated protests with looting and riot activities and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, sending in the military to quiesce the violence over governor objections if their actions don't meet his expectations. I've also tweeted about this, pointing out Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution doesn't allow this. There is no doubt whatsoever that Trump's real target is suppressing the protests themselves, which are guaranteed by the First Amendment. On top of everything else, Trump had a protest in front of the White House broken up so he could walk across the street to a church where he posed holding for politically motivated photos holding his Bible. This was unambiguously an abuse of power which is almost routine now under Trump (recently terminating 4 inspector generals).
So let me conclude this essay by anticipating a reader response of how I might handle this differently, i.e., constructive criticism. Fair enough; I've sometimes elaborated on what I might do if I were President:
- First of all, I would unambiguously state that Floyd's murder violated his unalienable rights under the US and state constitutions. Every criminal suspect is entitled to due process, and a policeman cannot be judge and executioner; these are different roles in our system of justice. What Chauvin and his enabling co-conspirators did to Floyd was dangerous and unnecessary; he was already in custody and under control. Under our system of justice, they must be held accountable for their actions, for abusing the public trust.
- Second, I would acknowledge that our system of justice targets a disproportionate percentage of blacks, many of whom cannot afford more capable lawyers. We already have a globally disproportionate number of incarcerated citizens, nearly quintuple our share of the global population. We need reforms aimed at poor urban blacks, including policies which have incentivised family separation, occupational licensing, failing public school monopolies, and double-standard prosecution of victimless crimes. We need to end mandatory sentences. We need to end a double standard of justice where policemen are protected from accountability for their professional misconduct by public union/contract protections and qualified immunity.
- Third, I would explicitly and unconditionally recognize the rights of peaceful assembly and protest. I would recall Dr. Martin Luther King's leadership on the principle of nonviolent protests and point out no one honors the memory of Floyd by harming the lives and property rights of others; two wrongs don't make a right.
- Fourth, I would set the right expectations. Homicide generally falls under the police power residing in the states by the tenth amendment. Minnesota is responsible for achieving justice for the murder of George Floyd. The US Constitution holds Minnesota accountable for government violations of civil rights, including the principle of equal protection under the law.
