On law and disorder, the question is what you'll really get with Trump or Biden
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, makes the case for his boss's reelection during Thursday's Republican National Convention. Credit: Republican National Committee via AP
As an incumbent exploiting the privileges of the White House, President Donald Trump faces a unique election challenge. He suggests that in a second term, he would solve problems that have emerged or worsened in this first term: the coronavirus pandemic, the economic collapse, racial issues, violent protests and an uptick in urban crime.
On one level, this requires Trump skirting blame for crises on his watch. On another, he must create the caricature of an imaginary future Joe Biden record. Both are low-road campaign tactics with results to be determined.
"Law and order" pledges are a prime example. President Richard Nixon and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, both Republicans, famously won on promises that they would restore civic tranquility.
But they did so as challengers who unseated Democrats.
Trump, on the other hand, has been in office for more than three and a half years. His rhetoric is often far grander than his actions.
The GOP's "law and order" message of today does resound, but only to the degree it is directed against local and state Democrats who are outside Trump's constitutional reach.
The case can be made that progressives seem uninterested in forceful crackdowns against looting, arson and other disorder in cities across America. The mayhem does come as the pandemic and bail reforms relaxed long-criticized incarceration practices.
Practically, however, reelecting Trump won’t displace those officials or policies. In the past the president complained about how Democrats ran sanctuary cities and locked down businesses during the pandemic.
His sideline carping had no impact. His threats of federal infringement on local control keep falling through. Blue states have been mobilized for three years against an array of Trump policies.
If Biden is elected, however, the path to either peace or justice is just as hard to see. What changes will he negotiate or impose that achieve either goal?
The destruction in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 following the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown occurred late in President Barack Obama’s second term, with Biden as vice president.
Having a Black president and a Justice Department that negotiated consent decrees with local police departments did not prevent destruction that followed shocking videos gone viral.
Answering the Democratic convention, where bereaved survivors of those killed in police encounters were given voice, Republican speakers got their say in the lead-up to Trump's speech Thursday night.
Ann Dorn, widow of a Black retired St. Louis police captain killed during turmoil there in June after George Floyd's death, spoke of David Dorn's death at the Republican National Convention last week to bolster Trump's offering of federal intervention in cities "to restore order in our communities."
The Trump RNC appeal clearly was directed at places where voters may be divided on the dueling slogans of "Black Lives Matter" versus "Blue Lives Matter."
Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, declared in his RNC speech: "It is clear that a vote for Biden and the Democrats creates the risk that you will bring this lawlessness to your city, to your town, to your suburb.
"Don’t let Democrats do to America what they have done to New York," in bowing to radicals and socialists, he said.
New York City Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch also railed against Democrats in local offices for cutting budgets and making it harder for officers to do their jobs. He told the convention audience there is "no other choice" but Trump for public safety, and officers complain to him that their "hands are tied."
Beyond that, it is hard to see what presidential actions of the future would transform this conflict. Exact proposals may make a good issue in the debates, but only if there’s hope of getting a solid answer from either of the two contestants.
For the next four years, the national politics of policing are all about polarization and hazy open questions.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
