Donald Trump’s two terms in office have proven Orwell right. No, not the “1984 is not an instruction manual” thing. The other one. Animal Farm. Some animals are more equal than others. At the top of the heap? The pigs.
Trump led off his first term in office by threatening to create a police state if people didn’t start respecting police more:
One of the fundamental rights of every American is to live in a safe community. A Trump Administration will empower our law enforcement officers to do their jobs and keep our streets free of crime and violence. The Trump Administration will be a law and order administration. President Trump will honor our men and women in uniform and will support their mission of protecting the public. The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong. The Trump Administration will end it.
Trump was wrong about at least two things in January 2017. First, there’s no “fundamental right” to live in a safe community. If there was such a right, cops would be getting sued and prosecuted for failing to actually, you know, protect and serve. Unfortunately, the courts have made it clear law enforcement gets to have lots of power and extra rights, but they have no Constitutionally-obliged duty of care.
Second, Trump didn’t end the “anti-police atmosphere.” He never had a chance. Cops continued to be cops and before Trump was shoved out of office (following a police-assaulting insurrection attempt by his supporters) Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin decided to singlehandedly personify an entire lynch mob by kneeling on unarmed Black man George Floyd’s neck until he stopped breathing… and then for several minutes after that. After that, all bets were off, and Trump still had seven months left in office.
Now, he’s back for more. A new executive order issued by Donald Trump bears this chilling title:
STRENGTHENING AND UNLEASHING AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PURSUE CRIMINALS AND PROTECT INNOCENT CITIZENS
“Strengthening?” Cops have plenty of power, especially now that so many of them have signed up to be part of the federal War on Brown People. It’s not like cops are easy to sue or prosecute and they’re pretty much able to do whatever they think they’ll get away with at any point in time. There’s already plenty of strength. But (spoiler alert!) they’re going to get even more.
I’m much more concerned about the word “unleashing,” which sounds pretty much like Trump is going remove the few deterrents that actually make cops think twice before violating rights, killing people, or generally just being assholes.
And, indeed, both of the things listed above will happen, if this Executive Order manages to mobilize those just waiting around to be mobilized.
Here’s the lead-in, which is surrounded by a couple of paragraphs that insinuate this is necessary because the United States is besieged by violent criminals. Nothing could be further from the truth, except maybe Donald Trump himself. Crime rates remain at historic lows. And being a cop has never been safer. Nonetheless, the big man is angry because sometimes not everyone is waving “COPS#1!” over-sized novelty foam fingers.
When local leaders demonize law enforcement and impose legal and political handcuffs that make aggressively enforcing the law impossible, crime thrives and innocent citizens and small business owners suffer. My Administration will therefore: establish best practices at the State and local level for cities to unleash high-impact local police forces; protect and defend law enforcement officers wrongly accused and abused by State or local officials; and surge resources to officers in need. My Administration will work to ensure that law enforcement officers across America focus on ending crime, not pursuing harmful, illegal race- and sex-based “equity” policies.
Again with the DEI. Presumably, Trump has been set off by incidents like these and thinks some outlier behavior justifies an “unleashing.”
MINNEAPOLIS — Starting Monday, prosecutors in Hennepin County will be required to consider race when offering plea deals, according to a new policy from County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
Of course, this policy won’t survive for long because it’s going to be hard to square it with the Constitution, but there can be little doubt things like these — along with the Administration’s desperate desire to separate itself from anything that resembles diversity, equity, or inclusion (the horror!) — helped prompt this dangerous word salad that could actually give cops the last little push they need to fully become a law unto themselves.
But that’s just the table-setter. The devil is in the details and oh holy fuck, these demons are legion.
Trump starts with promising that cops accused of rights violations and crimes will be lawyered up even more than they already are.
The Attorney General shall take all appropriate action to create a mechanism to provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law. This mechanism shall include the use of private-sector pro bono assistance for such law enforcement officers.
OK. This is insane. And the last sentence indicates Trump and his DOJ plan to lean on the law firms that have already been hit with executive orders. And some may do that to buy their way back into the administration’s good graces. (This assumes the administration has any good and/or grace.) But cops don’t need this. It already exists. Cops are usually represented by union lawyers. Cops that don’t have unions are usually represented by government lawyers. Indemnification is a given, even when cops lose lawsuits. It’s not like cops don’t have a wealth (and by wealth, I mean “taxpayer-funded”) of options when it comes to free lawyers.
The only cops that may not have these options are cops who have been fired, or who have resigned rather than be fired. At that point, they’re no longer cops, which means no expense they incur in defense of their actions is “unjust” and any liability is their own. But these are extremely rare cases. By and large, all this does is create the perception that even ex-officers will be given access to pro bono and/or taxpayer-funded lawyers — a new privilege (that’s being declared like it’s a new right) that this government would never extend to anyone other than its own.
Under the sub-heading “Empowering State and Local Law Enforcement,” Trump has added even more perks and benefits for cops:
(iii) increase pay and benefits for law enforcement officers;(iv) strengthen and expand legal protections for law enforcement officers;(v) seek enhanced sentences for crimes against law enforcement officers
Some cops should be paid more. Some should be paid way, way less. Across the board raises do nothing but burden smaller communities with bills they can’t pay and enrich officers who are earning far above the standard wage for their occupation. While it may attract more people to the law enforcement field, it certainly won’t do anything to make them better than the people that already work there.
We definitely don’t need any expansion of legal protections for officers. Federal officers are already 99.9% impossible to sue in civil court. Regular cops aren’t quite as protected but every government employee has access to qualified immunity, which has been steadily expanded by Supreme Court rulings over the past few decades to create a massive barrier most litigants aren’t able to surmount.
The last one is just more “blue lives matter” garbage — something that turns people who have tons of power and almost zero accountability into a “protected class,” as though police have been marginalized by their own government like every single racial minority in this country since its inception. This somehow attempts to turn cops into the people at the other end of the cop-operated fire hose in 1960’s Birmingham, Alabama, which is one of the stupidest things I can imagine.
Of course, these expanded powers come with the complete removal of responsibility. Trump has already dumped and destroyed the only police accountability database run by the federal government. He’s gutted the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, leaving what’s left of it to do what it can to prop up [checks notes] Second Amendment rights unfairly trampled by [checks notes again] fairly minor gun control efforts.
Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall review all ongoing Federal consent decrees, out-of-court agreements, and post-judgment orders to which a State or local law enforcement agency is a party and modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.
Kiss all your ongoing consent decrees goodbye, along with any reform efforts they contained. Not only will the DOJ refuse to punish cops for bad behavior going forward, it’s going to claw back anything any previous administration put in place.
All highly problematic and all guaranteed to set us back two or three decades in terms of law enforcement accountability. But here’s where it jumps the police state shark:
Sec. 4. Using National Security Assets for Law and Order. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.(b) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime.
Paragraph (a) says any restrictions on the federal government’s 1033 program (which allows local law enforcement to buy or obtain for free surplus military gear) are being removed. Anyone wanting anything from a set of filing cabinets to an MRAP (mine-resistant armored personnel vehicle) just has to ask. If it’s in the cupboard, it can likely be had for next to nothing. And because it’s a direct line from cops to the federal government, local oversight likely won’t be allowed to ask questions, much less prevent local officers from playing G.I. Joe with all their new accessories.
Paragraph (b) is an absolute heater. Our drunken lout of a SecDef (a guy who seemingly can’t activate his phone without sharing war plans and sensitive data with civilians) will “determine” how “military assets” and “personnel” [let’s just split this part off again for emphasis]:
can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime
Yeah.
I think some of us may be fine with the National Guard being sent in to serve as (non-combatant) backup to police forces overwhelmed during violent riots. I think far too many people are also fine with the National Guard being sent to the border to handle the alleged “border crisis.” (Lord knows current DHS head Kristi Noem definitely is.)
But who’s on board with this? This isn’t asking for the military to respond to some unforeseen situation where immediate violent force is needed to protect lives and communities. This is Trump directing Pete Hegseth to see if the US military might be used to prevent crime. Hell, even regular cops are barely in the “preventing crime” business. This sounds like an excuse for Trump to scramble US warfighters to any place he thinks needs more crime prevention, which will almost certainly be any city run by a liberal where literally any criminal activity of note manages to bubble up into the goldfish tank Trump calls his attention span.
This is a literal police state invitation, being extended by a guy who loves law and order (except when he or his followers are caught up in the system) to a subservient dude who’s just happy to be on TV now and then. It’s a “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” but I have to imagine even Aleister Crowley during his most hashish-addled days might have thought twice before turning soldiers into cops. And I would like to think even some cops might have a problem with this.
There it is. Prepare for the worst. If you do that, at least you’ll get to enjoy each and every day in which the worst doesn’t happen. And when the worst does happen, at least it won’t be a surprise.
This is one of the genuinely alarming things I’ve seen out of the Trump administration.
The allegiance of the people with a monopoly on violence is one of the really important things in a fascist takeover. And, so far, Trump has been doing an absolutely great job at alienating both the police and the military, which I was super happy about.
If he’s about to get smart about getting the local cops on his side, that’s real real bad.
This is also relevant to any of you who might feel the need to walk up to cops who are interacting with a shoplifter or drunk driver and start bellowing “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” or otherwise making the knee-jerk assumption that all police are bad. They are not. Being pointlessly hostile to them in all respects is popular on the left I know, but it absolutely plays directly into Trump’s hands.
I'm struggling to see this in a manner that doesn't read as racism. It shouldn't be socially unacceptable to insist that black lives matter, particularly towards one of the organizations most prone to abusing them. It's also telling that those were the example crimes you cited and that, regardless of the accused infraction, that still shouldn't imply that their lives therefore don't matter.
And the reason for the mindset that ACAB is because if they weren't, they wouldn't be cops. There's countless examples of "the good ones" being run out departments (or worse), meaning that any remaining are either active participants in corruption and/or abuse, or at least willing to look the other way to it. It doesn't matter what an individual's ethics are if they allow themselves to assist others in harmful activities.
The mythical good police should be furious at the reputation their bad members have brought to the profession and be taking loud and decisive steps to reform. But there's not large numbers of precincts striking (or similar) over the human rights abuses, except for their desire to continue causing them without consequences.
Nothing to do with what I was talking about. I think the BLM protests were hugely powerful and important. Honestly it's not really relevant to me whether they were "acceptable" to any particular person. They were a good thing, it was a massive problem in American society and the people who shine a light on it, good on them.
I'm saying that in the middle of a drunk driving citation is not the time when it is useful to make that point. Surely that is not controversial. Right?
Honestly I just don't have time or bandwidth for this discussion right now. Maybe I can do a little CMV post at some other time when I feel like getting in a massive sprawling argument with all of Lemmy. For the time being, I'm just going to refer you to this, which I think will contain quite a bit of wealth of material in terms of how I feel about it and how I respond to people who have reasonable counterbalancing points of view:
https://ponder.cat/post/1398126/1592995
https://ponder.cat/post/1528582/1749840
Entirely hypothetical situation, but a passerby seeing police mistreat a black suspected drunk driver physically or verbally is an appropriate and useful time to make the point. Even if everything appears above-board, if the cops aren't doing anything wrong then they shouldn't be concerned with being reminded to treat others' lives with respect, right? Part of their job and training revolves around conflict resolution and dealing with frustrating situations. They should be able to handle people shouting things at them.
I'm not trying to get into a lengthy discussion over police abuse or their current role in our society either. But I generally think until their accountability is the norm and not the exception they deserve all the animosity coming their way. If they want to lump everyone into good guys and bad guys without caring about nuance then the same can be done for their group.
I'm also not going to pick apart all the things in your links but I strongly disagree with your recommendations about interacting with the police. You also spend a lot of energy trying to equate fewer headline police abuses with effective and thorough widespread reform.
[This section is more directed at others reading the thread than expecting/inviting a retort]
You flat out do not talk to them in any capacity beyond the hard legal requirements unless you've talked to a lawyer or someone educated and qualified enough to give sound legal advice. Your saying things like "don't refuse to give ID" or "Just talk with them. Tell them what you know, help them figure out the situation." as a blanket suggestion can potentially be harmful to an entirely unrelated and innocent individual. I wholeheartedly wish this wasn't the case. I'm an overly honest person and generally believe that telling the truth and providing whatever help you can in a given scenario is the correct course of action - but with the current police and legal situation in the US there's only the potential to cause harm to you or others if you give them the benefit of doubt and volunteer information. It's not just for the protection of stoners and crime-adjacent people, "proper upstanding citizens" have found themselves as people of interest in a crime they were either a victim of or unconnected to because they wanted to tell their side or offer what little they know about the event. And playing dumb with ICE has the potential to bite your ass if they decide to try proving you were impeding an investigation by providing false information or downplaying your knowledge; it's safer to state you're invoking your right to silence and then say nothing at all.
I've had interactions with police where I've talked to them and nothing bad has happened to me, but I'm not going to try telling others that's the smart or correct thing to do. And just because I got an empty chamber doesn't mean playing Russian Roulette is safe. In this poor analogy it should also be recognized that my game might be different than someone else in that my revolver is aimed at an extremity, while theirs is aimed at their head with more chambers and only one being empty. Instead of talking about tricks to determine if the cylinder landed on a safe spot the more prudent advice is just don't play the game at all.
Correct. I'm not aware of any factor that would make the news or activist organizations shy about reporting police abuses, and in the absence of any kind of systematic tracking of this (which, there really should be) I think it's a good substitute.
It would be massively harmful if that was what I said. It wasn't. In fact, I specifically laid out two other responses including "don't say a goddamned word" which might be better approaches than "tell them what you know" depending on the situation, while making it clear that none of this was blanket suggestions because every situation is different. There was a very specific scenario where I think helping the cops figure out what's going on could be useful, and I talked about that one, yes.
This is incredibly dumb advice. ICE doesn't give a shit about your constitutional rights, and they don't care about proving anything, and most of how they react will get decided on the spot. I'm pretty sure I specifically addressed ICE as a special case. Actually their specific parameters factored into the specific advice I gave for ICE specifically.
I'm going to take it out of the realm of the hypothetical and show some specific examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zmJ6WUdIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLPt0K9EQ9Q
What's your take on those? What's your reaction?
I'm happy to show some ones where the cops did really fucked up things, if you want me to even that balance, and I'll give you my take on them. I'm not trying to take any kind of blindly pro-police standpoint. This is mostly bringing up a whole separate scenario where this kind of "the police are always the enemy" mentality produces very real harm in the actual real world, and the police in these videos did absolutely nothing to show any kind of brutality or unprofessionalism in any way. And there's actually a third one I was looking for, where the guy I think legitimately was terrified of the police and just not understanding what was going on and tried to flee, and he managed to turn a ticket for an open container into multiple felonies, wrecked his car, got tackled and cuffed, everything. And then after he was cuffed in the back of the police car he was still talking about "I fear for my life I fear for my life" and the cops who were completely calm were really trying to explain to him that yes, now that we've caught you for the crimes that you objectively definitely committed and it's all resolved from the physical struggle you introduced to the situation, you are 100% safe.
I do think that a lot of that culture in policing came from the BLM protests. I think there's been a massive shift in the way the US looks at policing in a very good way, and a lot of the abuses that caused that whole explosion are not completely fixed. But also, the ones that are fixed and the cops that at this point are bending over backwards not to get painted that way or do anything wrong and have 100% of what they do scrutinized on bodycams, shouldn't just get yelled at and treated like scumbags every day because "well I wanted to be hateful to them because they deserve it, in my mind." Like I say, and getting back to the original point, that's not harmless. It is playing into Trump's hands, in this case.
This whole mentality like "Well some other police did some fucked up things, so it's your fault and I'm going to treat you like the enemy and that's your problem" actually does a ton of harm in a lot of different ways, but motivating people to get hostile with the police and make their own situation 20 times worse is one additional example of how harmful it can be.
I have more to say, but I'm curious for your reaction to those two videos first.
We're clearly not going to see eye to eye and neither are likely to budge from our current positions. I'm typically going to err on siding with the weaker party in a power disparity so in specific scenarios where someone is behaving like a jackass to polite police it is still preferable to the instances where the police are allowed to maim, kill or restrain someone because they felt like it and not face repercussions. It's not right, but fast food cashiers deal with verbal (and occasionally other) abuse every day and don't have a union or sometimes even bosses backing them up, and they generally manage not to use that as an excuse to abuse others so I don't think it's unconscionable that the police are minimally held to that expectation.
I'm not going to debate with you anymore about this. If you want to take that as a win or that I don't have any good responses, feel free. I'm sure you've heard most of any arguments I might make from others and are still certain of your stance being the correct one (just as I am with mine). I initially just wanted to highlight that it felt like you were unnecessarily bringing race into this discussion and not in a particularly thoughtful manner.
Have a good one.
Cool, have a good one.
Edit: Actually, I will make one point: This whole mentality "Okay maybe it is producing harm but that's not my fault because I am reacting to someone else / someone else in some other time period did something worse" is a really bizarre and bad take.
I saw it from the same people refusing the vote for Democrats, acknowledging that Trump would be infinitely worse and visit a bunch of horrors on the world, but saying "Well the Democrats should have been better, then." It's the same. "Sure this is going to escalate this guy's situation and get him a bunch of felonies when the cops did nothing wrong, but it some other cops' fault and not his and not the cops on scene... so we good!"
Sure. Great. Sounds good.