Friday, September 18, 2020

Restoration of Law & Order: The War-Cry which may help Trump defeat Joe Biden in November 2020

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Vanshita Banuana

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Restoration of Law & Order: The War-Cry which may help Trump defeat Joe Biden in November 2020

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Global Views 360

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September 18, 2020

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Donald Trump at a presidential elections rally

Donald Trump at a presidential elections rally | Source: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

At the peak of the “Black Lives Matter” protest in June 2020, against the brutal killing of George Floyd by the police, the US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities. It is now September, and as Black Lives Matter protests— and the police brutality that ignited them— continue amidst a pandemic leaving over two hundred thousand Americans dead and millions infected, Trump’s fear-mongering distortions of events also continues.

The executive order sets requirements for police “certification and credentialing” of law enforcement agencies, and links the credentials to discretionary funding. It bans chokeholds except where deadly force is allowed by law. A database will be created to share information and track incidents of excessive use of force, terminations or de-certifications of officers, criminal convictions for on-duty conduct, and so on. Additionally, the order asks for surveys and community support programs to address mental health, homelessness and addiction in context of law enforcement’s response to them. Lastly, the order proposes that new legislation be developed to increase funding and resources provided to law enforcement.

While announcing the executive order, Trump called for a “restoration of law and order” and more funding for police at a time when Americans are protesting in cities across the country to reduce police funding and presence in order to combat police brutality. He claimed to want to put a stop to “looting and arson,” further remarking that Americans want law and order even if they “may not say it” or may not “even know that’s what they want”. Additionally, he believed the percentage of bad police officers to be very tiny.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) responded to the announcement, and called Trump’s call for “law and order” a racist dog-whistle specifically intended for his voter base in light of the upcoming election, and reiterated the need for lesser police presence. Allocation of discretionary funds, mentioned in the executive order, has been known to lead to increased militarisation of the police. They observed that Trump used the word “race” once and never used the word “racism,” and that he was surrounded by law enforcement officers throughout the announcement and his prepared remarks.

Use of fear-mongering to shore up the support for electoral benefit is not something new which Trump is employing, but a time-tested tool for many leaders in the Republican Party. The phrase “law and order” has a long cultural history in America, even before its use by politicians was popularised, and therefore racialised (if it wasn’t already).  

President Richard Nixon’s TV ads in the 60s showed middle-aged white women walking nervously down city streets at night. Trump’s false claims of Biden wanting to defund the police are complemented by his recent campaign ad that shows an elderly woman at home alone, who calls the police when a burglar breaks in. However, she is told that the police can no longer serve her due to being defunded. Setting aside the misconceptions about what defunding the police would look like, the ad is clearly designed to create panic at the thought of a fantasised future, one that Trump and his family like to call “Biden’s America” every time they post pictures of present-day Trump’s apocalyptic America.

It is definitely not unlike Trump to use racist rhetoric about crime meant to cause fear. It was one of his biggest selling points in the 2016 election as well, promising a border wall and anti-immigration policy to keep out immigrants— mostly Mexicans— who he claimed would bring crime and drugs into America. This year Trump has revived the argument by acting as the saviour of the suburbs, who he claims are under the attack of calls for desegregation. To that extent, at the 2020 Republic National Convention, Trump invited the McCloskeys, the couple who brandished firearms at Black Lives Matters protestors, to speak about “forced rezoning,” which they alleged would make their suburban neighbourhood unsafe. Nixon’s comments about the “city jungle” threatening the suburbs come to mind.

President Trump’s election campaign flag with Confederate flag | Source: Gilbert Mercier via Flickr

Many would notice that the racism in Trump’s statements is often barely covered up by his abstract and vague choice of words. The message, whether in 2016 or 2020, remains unmistakably the same: he is telling rich and middle class white people— painted as the peaceful victims— that he will protect them from violence caused by the ‘other,’ i.e., poor people of colour.

This fear of the ‘other,’ the angry Black American, is the same fear used by Republican Presidential candidate (and later President) Richard Nixon in 1968. The law-and-order rhetoric that evolved during that election period can be connected to 21st century ‘tough-on-crime’ policies, both of which have heavy racial undertones and are weaponized by Republicans as well as Democrats.

Is Donald Trump the new age Richard Nixon? That might seem to be overstretched, but quite a few traits and  similarities can be drawn between 2020 and 1968, perhaps most of all due to the widespread protests and clashes with police that erupted after the assassination of civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. Another major political and cultural event of the time was the Vietnam War, which led to a feeling of disorder that many Americans might be feeling at present as well. Trump is using promises of imposing “law and order” to project a strongman image; the desire to project such an image, however, hypocritically leads Trump to encourage violence where it benefits him.

However, these strategies aren’t as successful as Trump wants them to be— least of all successful enough to cover up his gross mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the suburbs have not remained as ‘pure’ as they might seem in Trump’s eyes; they have grown in diversity of wealth and race, almost parallel to cities. Trump is out of his depth when forced to reckon with mass unemployment, preventable deaths, and science, and he would do anything to bring the focus back to his comfort zone, which is why it is unsurprising when he uses Black Lives Matter protests and renewed conversation around policing to spread unfounded alarms about increased crime and violence.

According to recent polling data, while neither Trump nor Biden are viewed favourably by any significant margin when it comes to law enforcement, Biden is surely being viewed as more trustworthy when it comes to handling a crisis like the pandemic. Trump’s constant barrage of tweets and other announcements are less appreciated or supported when they cause further confusion in an already extremely chaotic environment. It is hard to imagine trusting a President who tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” to remain calm, organised or level-headed in any manner.  

While many may have expected Trump’s voter base to fall for the same old, recycled talking points, the public health crisis and economic meltdown took the conversation away from it. Now President Trump is desperately trying to take control of the narrative and scare voters to back him in November 2020.

There is some method to his apparent madness. The US President is not elected by securing  the majority of the popular vote, they are chosen by securing a majority of votes in the electoral college. There are different modelling of US poll results which predicts that Trump may lose by over five million popular votes but still win the Presidency due to scoring a majority of electoral college votes.

The constant hammering of being the “Law and Order” President and painting Joe Biden’s support for Black Lives Matter protest as the “support for lawlessness” is the only plausible way for Trump to gain a majority of the electoral college vote and retain the US Presidency in November 2020. It is to be seen whether the voters fear the COVID-19 & economic meltdown more than the Law and Order.

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February 4, 2021 4:36 PM

Black Lives Matter: Solidarity protests in Western Europe

The killing of the African-American George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police commanded world attention. It witnessed Pan-American protests against police brutality and racism. Countries across the world have stood in support of these protests against racial violence. These protests in America have triggered a number of protests across Western Europe to localise them and condemn racism in their own countries.

Protests against racial violence and police brutality drew large numbers across European capitals and other prominent cities as well. Paris protests alone saw an estimated 20000 people near the Eiffel Tower who protested against the death of George Floyd. These protesters tried to localise the issue of racial violence and police brutality by taking up the case of Traoré, a young black man whose family claims that he died due to suffocation under police custody at Persan (north of Paris) in 2016. These protests have been going on consistently for over a week. Despite the police ban on demonstrations in Paris due to the risk of COVID-19, the demonstrations couldn’t be curbed. Parallel protests were also reported in other cities of France like Lyon, Rennes and Marseille.

Berlin also has been sustaining its ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests for over a week. Demonstrations were held in other German cities such as Cologne, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. The Bayern Munich footballers wore T-shirts with slogans that read ‘Red card against racism- Black Lives Matter’ in their match against Leverkusen to raise awareness against racial violence. Various German activists believe Floyd’s death has not only triggered anti-racist protests but also multiple questions regarding equitable distribution of resources and representation of diverse races that co-habit in Germany.

In the United Kingdom, too, despite the COVID-19 risk, a large number of protestors stood in solidarity with the U.S protests. In Bristol, demonstrators pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston on 7 June, 2020. Even though these protests were against racial violence, the chords of the protests mainly struck with issues of blacks during COVID-19. British government data showed that blacks living in British were four times more likely to die from COVID-19 as compared to whites. This discrimination by the virus can be attributed to the institutionalised nature of racism and the lack of equitable access to resources for minorities living in Britain.

Protests were held widely in Spain. The U.S embassy outside Madrid has become one of the hotspots for protestors to gather. Hundreds gathered to mourn the death of Floyd and observed silence for him. The city of Budapest too observed silence and chanted songs outside its U.S embassy.

European media has also played a key role in actively condemning Trump for his actions of using military force to tackle the protests. While the French Newspaper Le Monde in its editorials has dubbed Trump as ‘President of division’ the Spanish newspaper El Pais’s headlines read ‘The U.S. Faces Its Worst Racial Conflict in Half a Century’. Trump’s actions to use federal force and active duty military personnel have made the European media to cover the protests more extensively. Newspapers coupled with social media have acted as catalysts in spreading the cause of the protests at a much faster rate.

Floyd’s killing sparked protests against racial violence and systematic racism around the world. However, it resonated at a deeper level with Western European countries primarily due to their rising number of immigrants from African and Arab countries. These countries, for decades, have struggled with accommodating these minorities equally with the mainstream population. The approach to localise these protests has helped to not only denounce racial violence in America but also in their own home country. The nature and extent of these protests have pointed out that governments no longer have the luxury of gradualism and have to instead take up swift actions to eliminate institutionalised racism and police brutality.

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