Many are rightly criticizing the president’s recent remarks that police should rough up suspects under arrest, but as often is the case with his words and actions, there is really no sufficient response to this recent speech, short of seeking his removal from office. In one fell swoop, Donald Trump has put the bully pulpit of the presidency on the side of vigilantism and racist policing, trashed the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and suggested that infliction of physical pain is now an appropriate punishment for simply suspected law-breaking. In doing so, he has offered yet more evidence that he’s unqualified for the presidency and unfit to hold office.
Encouraging violence against suspects is a recipe for disaster, not only for the well-being of the arrested, but for our legal system more generally. How many convictions might ultimately be thrown out if police took the president’s advice to its logical conclusion and began beating confessions out of suspects? Is anyone willing to argue that this is NOT the logical conclusion of his remarks? That you are guilty upon arrest, and deserve treatment that in other countries we would freely describe as torture? This is to say nothing about the way his words will inevitably poison relations between those communities already overpoliced and underprotected by misguided if not outright racist policies that routinely deny poorer Americans their civil rights, including protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Trump’s words are meant to shock law-abiding citizens, and to give succor and inspiration to his die-hard supporters who confuse state violence against the accused with getting tough on crime. But rather than being the words of a lunatic, as some would argue, Donald Trump’s remarks are all too red, white, and blue, though out of a dark tradition that encompasses the horrors of Jim Crow and grotesquely disparate sentencing for blacks and whites.
And as Trump is the leader of the GOP, these words must also be taken as positions held by that party, unless and until they’re widely repudiated by elected Republican officials. Enough of acting like Trump is some sort of outlier. He’s the logical conclusion of Republican attitudes, the racist, authoritarian underbelly that’s been hiding in plain view all along. Make the party choose — defend the president, or break with him.
For anyone opposed to Trump, I would also advise that, after processing the inevitable outrage over his remarks, it’s important to remember that Trump wants to disorient and divide our country, to force us into a reactive posture, and that we should seek to deny him this outcome. I continue to believe that implacable, cold-blooded strategizing is a proper response to what we face; this includes both outright opposition to this president, but also a clear and vocal articulation of the country that WE want to see.
Donald Trump has far more to fear from an alert, organized, energized citizenry than we have to fear from him. It’s also clearer than ever to me that we need to make a political example of this president so that our country never has to endure such a would-be tyrant who would shred the Constitution, turn citizens against each other, and profit off his high office. It may not always feel like it, but Donald Trump is politically on our turf, not his own. He's not a candidate anymore, flying home every night to Trump Tower. He's the president, and living in democracy's house, both literally and metaphorically. Trump may be trying to break the norms of our system, but it's hard for me to believe that millions of patriotic Americans can't turn this around and figure out effective strategies for breaking Trump, not to mention the complicit party that enables his rancid presidency.
