When a friend told me this morning that the National Fraternal Order of Police, our nations’s largest police organization, with over 325,000 members, had endorsed Donald Trump for President, I thought that it had to be a hoax. “There’s no way,” I thought, “that they could support a candidate who has repeatedly promoted violence at his rallies and suggested that gun rights activists, if they really wanted to protect our nation, would assassinate his rival. It’s apparently not, though. The following comes by way of The Hill.
The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) gave the GOP presidential nominee its endorsement after he received support from more than two-thirds of the group’s national board.
“[Trump] has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today. He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again,” said Chuck Canterbury, the FOP’s national president.
“He’s made a real commitment to America’s law enforcement and we’re proud to make a commitment to him and his campaign by endorsing his candidacy today.”
And, if you still don’t believe it, here’s the statement from the Fraternal Order of Police.
As for what the police may find attractive about Trump, here’s what the folks at Slate had to say.
Priority one: Instill fear to make people less inclined to criticize the police.
Trump has repeatedly lied about how much crime there is in the United States, asserting at rallies and in interviews that the country is suffering through a violent crime wave, even though most places in America have never been safer.
Why the union likes this: Fear of crime makes people less inclined to criticize police.
Priority two: Try to kill the police reform movement.
Trump casts efforts to make police officers kill fewer people as a “war on police” being waged by criminals. In his prime-time “law and order” speech in August, Trump stated, “Our job is not to make life more comfortable for the rioter, the looter, the violent disruptor.” By associating activists and protesters with rioters and looters, Trump spreads the notion that people calling for police reform are doing so because they are violent law-breakers who want to weaken the ability of the police to keep the country safe.
Priority three: Make Americans feel so guilty for criticizing the police that they stop criticizing the police.
Trump makes the false claim that it has never been more dangerous to work as a police officer—eliding the much more reassuring reality that the number of American police officers who get killed in the line of duty has been declining for decades. This sends the message that ordinary people with ordinary jobs have no business criticizing the work of law enforcement.
Priority four: More fawning over police officers.
Trump only talks about the police in the most glowing terms, saying things like, “What you do is incredible,” and “the police in this country are absolutely amazing people.” This serves as a counterbalance to widespread calls for police reform that are based on the idea that police officers are not above criticism.
Priority five: Create the impression that this whole “police officers disproportionately kill black people” thing is wrong.
Last November, Trump memorably tweeted a racist meme that, in addition to falsely claiming that 81 percent of whites are killed by blacks, incorrectly suggested that police actually kill whites more often than they kill blacks. It is advantageous to the FOP if more Americans can be convinced, with fake numbers, that the Black Lives Matter movement exists to defend the rights of violent offenders, and that its underlying argument is a sham.
Like a lot of folks, I’d like to think that the instances of police violence that we’re seeing across America can be attributed to “a few bad apples.” When things like this happen, though, it reminds me that the problem goes a hell of a lot deeper.
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There were other images I could have used up top, as Trump’s taken a lot of photos with cops, but I liked this one, as one of the officers looks like Devine.
An angry, racist, misogynist Devine who just wants to bash in your skull.
Not surprising.
Not a surprise. The group backed the GOP candidate in 2000, 2004 and 2008. They chose not to endorse either candidate in 2012. The group did endorse Bill Clinton in 1996. Their track record is that of a group that backs Republicans.
Have they ever backed a female candidate? Looks like a good old boy network. Does female = weak on crime to them? This and Trump has absolutely no experience with law enforcement, or military people, or dealing with situations where law enforcement is concerned except to tell them to throw people out of his rally’s and to tell Hillary to stop using them in an effort to get people riled up about the 2nd Amendment and to threaten her life. This is sickening.
What happens if you assume most members of the police union are essentially reasonable people, and that Trump is an obvious dumbass? Why would reasonable people endorse an obvious dumbass over Hillary? Someone please explain. Why is the next president going to be Donald Trump?
Gestapo.
Well, I seem to remember a recent court case where it was decided that intelligence isn’t a protected state and it was because a police department was not promoting officers who scored too high on a test. i.e. they were deliberately promoting less intelligent officers over more intelligent ones. Consider too that being a police officer is a position that carries a lot of power and authority. It appeals to people who want to have power and authority over others. Trump is straight up running on an authoritarian platform with a vision of a country where police officers will have power and unquestioned power at that. So now we have a system that makes it more likely that our police officers will be dumb and power hungry. This is no surprise in that context.
You missed the memo. The big news this past week was Corey Feldman on the Today Show.
http://www.today.com/video/corey-feldman-performs-go-4-it-live-on-today-766749764000
Caption for the bottom photo:
“Stop Resisting!”…the urge to vote for Trump/Pence 2016.
I agree with Lynne to an extent, I think. I actually couldn’t figure out if Mark was being sarcastic about his being puzzled by the endorsement.
The endorsement and Trumps viability as a presidential candidate in general is a completely obvious consequence of our current social context…If Trump wins it will be in large part because he is appealing to people’s sense that law and order is lacking in our society.
Does anybody have any theories why Hillary did not ask for an endorsement from this group?
Do we know that Hillary did not ask for their endorsement, Frostie?
I read that she did not, but it is possible it is untrue, or I may have misunderstood. Do you have information on whether or not she asked for an endorsement?
No, I had not heard one way or the other. Let’s assume she didn’t, though. If you were in their shoes, wouldn’t you have declined to make an endorsement? According to one of the comments above, they chose not to endorse either candidate in 2012. Endorsing Trump, from my perspective, is a direct affront to the American people, and I don’t understand what they have to gain from it. It’s just throwing gas on the fire.
It is only “the fire” when you are not in it. People jump out of skyscrapers when they are actually in a fire. Right or wrong, Trump is perceived as the guy offering fire extinguishers. Is it reasonable to expect that Trump is going to lead us to a more peaceful and Just state? No, he will make things worse.
“When you are up to your neck with alligators, it is easy to forget that you are there to drain the swamp.”
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[…] looter, or the violent disrupter,” like Obama did… And, by the looks of it, the police, who aggressively supported Trump, are […]