U.S. President Donald Trump is doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on a bet rooted in history: that when civil-rights protests turn riotous, Americans will favour the iron fist.
Commentators have drawn parallels to Richard Nixon’s law-and-order message of 1968 whom Trump’s own former campaign manager called an inspiration.
History carries more recent examples.
They loom again as angry protests for racial change are sweeping across U.S. cities in an election year and clashing with demands for law and order.
A researcher who studies moments like these in American life was startled by something he noticed about another police-related death and its destructive aftermath, in Ferguson, Mo.
His findings involved the reaction of a certain type of American: the self-declared independent white voter. And a certain politician: Trump.
“I was pretty struck when we did the data analysis,” said Kevin Wozniak, who studies the politics and public opinion of criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts.
He and colleagues examined voters’ reaction during the 2016 election to being shown different images, including one of police officers in riot gear atop an armoured vehicle.
They found that whites who called themselves independent voters became 10 percentage points likelier to declare support for Trump after seeing that image.
A protester pours vodka into the mouth of another in front of a liquor store in flames in Minneapolis on May 28. (Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images)
The finding are pertinent politically following fury over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed after a policeman kneeled on his neck, prompted nights of protest, arson, looting and vandalism in several American cities.
Authorities in Minneapolis accused white agitators from outside the state of committing much of the vandalism, a claim Trump has echoed on his Twitter feed.
Trump’s track record
Earlier this week, one of Trump’s tweets was slapped with a warning label from Twitter for glorifying violence. Trump later insisted that he was not in fact endorsing extrajudicial execution when he tweeted: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Officers keep demonstrators away from the White House during a protest in Lafayette Park in Washington on May 30. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
He said he was simply calling for peaceful protests, and warning about the danger of violence: he noted that seven people were shot in Louisville, Ky., during protests over another police-involved death.
But there’s history leading up to that Trump tweet and his latest comments Saturday.
He’s the same president who referred to mostly black NFL players, peacefully protesting police violence during the national anthem, as sons of bitches.
He’s gotten cheers from a crowd of police officers for telling them that when arresting violent suspects, “Please don’t be too nice.”
A Detroit protester holds a photo of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minnesota, in a case that has launched nationwide protests and prompted criminal charges. (Sylvia Jarrus/Reuters)
The history behind the quote
Books like The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, and Dog Whistle Politics, by Ian Haney Lopez, chart how politicians, from way back when the U.S. was still a colony, have used punishment of blacks to their own political ends.
One famous law-and-order devotee was the originator of the slogan Trump tweeted about looting and shooting.
The Miami cop who coined the phrase, Walter Headley, was a nemesis of civil-rights leaders described in a New York Times piece as a hardline police chief of the old school.
His obituary talked about his willingness to use shotguns, dogs and stop-and-frisk tactics to fight crime in black neighbourhoods, culminating in several deaths and numerous injuries in 1968.
The Trump tweet that prompted a warning from Twitter. Users of the platform can still read it, but must first click through an advisory. (Twitter)
He died that same year after three marriages, two divorces, and one fatal heart attack. Yet his own legacy, like America’s race history, includes twists and turns that defy storybook conclusions.
Crime dropped for a while under Headley in some rough areas.
He drew a positive profile from the Associated Press where Miami black residents were said to welcome his tough approach and express relief at their safer neighbourhoods.
His Times obituary also said Headley frequently expressed pride at having hired the city’s first black police officers.
The man who coined the phrase Trump tweeted, Miami Police Chief Walter Headley, left, seen here in 1967 listening to Rev. Theodore Gibson. (Jim Bourdier/AP file)
There’s a meandering trajectory to Trump’s own recent history with race.
Trump now speaks frequently about the criminal-justice bill he signed, which softened prison sentences. It’s a frequent topic in his appeals in swing states, where he’s hoping to win a few more black votes.
Yet one of the first things his own electoral base relished about him was his law-and-order attitude.
In a 2016 interview, Trump’s original data director Matt Braynard said a desire for tough justice was the No. 1 defining characteristic among Trump’s earliest primary supporters.
Braynard rejected two common depictions of them — as authoritarian or racist. In the same interview, the ex-Trump campaign official also disparaged “Black Lives Matter terrorists,” in referring to the 2016 killing of Dallas police officers.
The Obama effect
There’s also evidence from the last presidency of how a police controversy and race can have combustible political effects.
Among the sharpest declines in support Barack Obama ever experienced happened in July 2009; he had commented on the arrest of a distinguished African-American university professor, who was trying to get into his house.
Pew Research cited that as one of the factors as it recorded a seven-point drop in support for Obama among white voters within one single week.
Early in his presidency, Obama had largely steered clear of talking about race.
But Americans talked about race lots. The author of one book, Post-Racial or Most-Racial? argues that simply having a black president quietly drove racial resentment that infected numerous conversations.
The so-called Beer Summit is pictured in 2009 when then-president Barack Obama invited Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates (L), Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley (2nd R) and Joe Biden to discuss a controversy. (Jim Young/Reuters )
The author, political scientist Michael Tesler, found a huge racial divide between whites and blacks in support for the Obamacare health reform — it was 20 percentage points greater than the gap in white-black attitudes during Bill Clinton’s failed health reform effort years earlier.
Other research has suggested that American whites adopt more conservative attitudes when they hear about the country’s changing racial demographics.
So what does Wozniak think will happen in 2020 as a result of this fury over police brutality, and eruption of looting and civil unrest?
“Our findings would suggest that the Minneapolis uprising will benefit Donald Trump — that it will be a mobilizing force for his base,” he said.
“I would add a great, big caveat to that, though.”
WATCH | Minneapolis mayor seeks National Guard help:
Riots and vandalism stem from protests over the death of a black man, George Floyd, after he was restrained by police. 1:42
His caveat: there are so many monumental issues rocking American politics right now that voters might be more focused on the pandemic, the economic collapse, and impassioned debates about Trump himself.
Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent, likely Democratic nominee Joe Biden, is promising voters his own version of stability — different from law and order.
His pitch is a less dramatic presidency.
In an address to the nation from his campaign website, Biden said he’d called Floyd’s family and said now was the time to address 400-year-old racial wounds, not add gasoline to a race controversy.
“This is no time for incendiary tweets,” he said. “The very soul of America is at stake.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
