Impeached president Donald Trump promised last week that he was going to do away with four centuries of American "bigotry and prejudice" in no time, that he'd take care of it "very quickly and very easily." Easy peasy. On Tuesday he's going to show us how with his new executive order on policing. The problem is, it doesn't actually sound like he's really got a problem with the "racism" part of the whole deal.
"The overall goal is we want law and order, and we want it done fairly, justly, we want it done safely," Trump told reporters on Monday. "But we want law and order. It's about law and order. But it's about justice also, and it's about safety." Translation: It's about making sure cops can still bash heads with impunity. He also told reporters that his props for this signing will be law enforcement officers when he announces it, and that he took suggestions for the order from law enforcement agencies. So, yeah, racism over because it will be "very comprehensive."
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Tuesday, Jun 16, 2020 · 4:29:41 PM +00:00 · Joan McCarter
Trump’s speech is predictably awful. After an introduction in which he read the names of people killed by cops (the families did not attend the ceremony, despite having been scheduled to be there) he gave a lengthy tribute to the wonderful cops fighting the “looters” on the streets. “Americans want law and order. They demand law and order,” he says, “some of them may not even know that's what they want.”
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2020 · 5:52:00 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
The lies. Trump claimed he met with the family of Antwon Rose. He did not. Rose’s mother said she chose not to meet “their president,” adding “I came to Washington to meet and speak with Senators that could have an impact on this movement! I will not have a conversation with anyone who disrespects us as individuals!”
That's Trump's impression of the event. Civil rights attorney S. Lee Merritt, who has represented the families of Black people killed by police, appeared on NBC News on Tuesday and said that he will also be at the Rose Garden ceremony and that he is slated to speak along with Trump and Attorney General William Barr. He says the order includes language that acknowledges the existence of systemic racism in law enforcement, so there's that. Sources at NPR say that the order "does not address concerns by many that police treat African Americans and people of color unfairly," but instead focuses on "breaking down barriers and bringing communities together and not demonizing the police."
Politico reports on what's in this order. The Justice Department will "certify independent organizations to provide accreditation to police departments on de-escalation, use of force, and community engagement." A certification will require that the department bans chokeholds—"unless an officer is targeted by deadly force." And we know we can always trust officers to determine when their lives are under threat.
It will also create a database to track cops who use "excessive force," and hinge some federal grants to police departments on their participation in the tracking system. The order has programs to instill "de-escalation" tactics in departments when they’re dealing with noncriminal calls for issues like homelessness and mental illness. Part of that is programs to "increase [the] capacity of social workers working alongside law enforcement for the implementation of co-responder programs so that they arrive and address situations together."
In his remarks Trump is expected to encourage Congress to do more, but it's not clear what more Republicans in the Senate would be wiling to do and how much Trump would be willing to accept. Because for him, it's still all about "law and order." Remember his words from last week about how he wants to make sure officers can still use "force, but force with compassion." Because it's all about law and order. "If somebody's real bad, you're going to have to do it with real strength."