Donald Trump plays strongman again in a disputed display of federal force
Federal agents in camo and tactical gear disperse Black Lives Matter protesters Monday in Portland, Ore. Credit: AP/Noah Berger
While protesters in Portland, Oregon, go on staging an extended rebellion, President Donald Trump poses as the Great Suppressor, bringer of order. Trump likes to show off the use of force. Whether it has any impact, or is constitutionally legitimate, may be an afterthought. He strives to look and sound tough. He wants to humiliate critics and haters.
Trump is doing his best to saddle blue-state Democrats with the resonant message that they failed to exercise control over recent disturbances. In Portland, the White House has generated for all to see the sight of Department of Homeland Security personnel scooping up people for questioning, throwing flash-bang grenades and tear-gassing and whacking demonstrators.
The president whipped up a broad if disjointed insurrection narrative on Monday. "Portland was totally out of control. The Democrats — all liberal Democrats running the place — had no idea what they were doing," he said in the past tense, as if the strife now ends with his intervention.
The president's electoral angle is clear. Elected Democrats become demons by association just as he's falling behind in polls to his putative Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Crime, protests, anarchists and corruption — all get cited in one dystopian stew in his latest rants and remarks. They portray urban America as dark and shattered, much like the bitter general picture he drew the day he was inaugurated.
"This American carnage" is forever ending for Trump.
At least some frustrated citizens in New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio is widely dismissed as ineffective, will accept a Trump "crackdown" as the only alternative to the status quo.
The pandering of the major parties here is none too subtle.
Democratic governors, lawmakers and mayors risk alienation and backlash from progressives and African Americans if they push too muscular a response to demonstrations, or crack down fiercely on those who destroy property and attack cops.
Republicans have no such problem because they rarely cultivate urban constituencies any more. The rebels they coddle now are red-state zealots who angrily resist the mask and social-distancing rules prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The timing of Trump's urban intervention, opposed by local officials, is particularly interesting. Just as it is too late for the U.S. to fight rampant coronavirus by getting tough on China, Trump comes up tardy in reacting to disorder that followed the death of George Floyd. Swaths of Minneapolis burned, but Trump will tell the story that all was peaceful once those diffident locals agreed to his urgings of calling in the National Guard.
It is a fixed narrative. If streets become calmer, we are to believe this was the president's doing. If violence, crime and property damage crest, that's the fault of local and state authorities. Heads he wins, tails they lose. Trump's bid for credibility never relies on results.
Same goes for the coronavirus. If local public health rules are too strict, that's on the locals, just as it would be if they are not strict enough.
This much is familiar: Whenever Trump evokes one of his "strong" military responses, it comes out less than fully effective and is controversial even among Pentagon brass.
Last month, he had National Guard troops summoned to Washington, D.C., only to be withdrawn soon after, following rebukes from within the Pentagon. As if to save face, Trump said the soldiers could go “now that everything is under perfect control.”
Two years ago, before the midterm elections, Trump ginned up a near-invasion by Central American migrants traveling through Mexico for the U.S. southern border. He threw in some colorful tales of Middle Easterners and criminals joining this "caravan," and called up several thousand troops to stand by for no clear practical purpose.
Even after the Republicans lost the House, and the troops were sent home, Trump tweeted that “the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it." So the problem wasn't solved. This time, in Portland, the targets of Trump's wrath are American citizens and elected officials. This new simulation of presidential strength has a different, perhaps more dispiriting, feel as political division intensifies.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
