After the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, the Paramount Network cancelled the reality-TV show “Cops” ahead of its June 1 premier. The show ran for 32 seasons. Its Wikipedia entry observes that “Party in a Box” from December 12, 2015 featured Atlanta Police Officer Garrett Rolfe, charged in the murder of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks during a DUI stop on June 12 this year. More reality ensued after both killings. Protests of police brutality and systemic racism have continued around the country ever since, including in Portland, Ore.
Acting president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, a former reality-TV show star himself, finds his ratings down and he needs a hit. Trump has decided to bring back “Cops” on the taxpayers’ nickel.
His target audience is his base of authoritarian followers he thinks enjoy seeing hippies’ and black people’s heads busted as Trump does. There could be 200,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 by Election Day. The economy is collapsing. His poll numbers are in free fall. His reelection is in peril. Trump has failed miserably to mount a coordinated national response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it shows. The reality star’s answer: bread and circuses. Without the bread.
Trump and his chief henchman, Attorney General Bill Barr, have decided the Portland preview was successful enough to take the show on tour. Jamelle Bouie writes in the New York Times:
Apparently cobbled together using personnel from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard, these “rapid deployment teams” are formally tasked with securing federal buildings from graffiti and vandalism in tandem with the Federal Protective Service, which is ordinarily responsible for the job. But they’re being used to suppress protests in what appears to be an election year gambit by the Trump administration to create images of disorder and chaos on which the president can then campaign. “This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety,” Kate Brown, the Democratic governor of Oregon, said last week. “Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in the hopes of winning political points in Ohio or Iowa.”
It has happened here
Department of Homeland Security officials has plans for fielding additional forces (ostensibly to protect federal property) in other cities that experience “unrest.” The Department of Justice plans to expand “Operation Legend,” Politico reports, an initiative Barr launched this month in Kansas City, Mo. to fight “the sudden surge of violent crime.” Those efforts will include FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration personnel.
Thomas Freidman considers a future historian’s account of how Trump responded to his 2020 dilemma:
“As the virus spread, and businesses had to shut down again and schools and universities were paralyzed as to whether to open or stay closed in the fall, Trump’s poll numbers nose-dived. Joe Biden opened up a 15-point lead in a national head-to-head survey.
“So, in a desperate effort to salvage his campaign, Trump turned to the Middle East Dictator’s Official Handbook and found just what he was looking for, the chapter titled, ‘What to Do When Your People Turn Against You?’
“Answer: Turn them against each other and then present yourself as the only source of law and order.”
Except Trump’s view of “Law n’ Order” he could as easily have picked up in the gift shop at Cracker Barrel as from authoritarian pals in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey or North Korea. Dangerous, either way.
Recurring guest villains in Trump’s made-for-Election 2020 nightly drama are secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, who believes Americans protesting police violence are “violent anarchists and extremists.” Also guest-starring is “Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security” Ken Cuccinelli who informs Democrat-led cities, “I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job…. We’re going to do that, whether they like us there or not.”
The problem Trump has is the limited appeal of his format and lack of Writers Guild talent for crafting engaging entertainment. Trump’s toy soldiers were easily upstaged by a “Wall of Moms” in Portland and by “Naked Athena.”
Entirely naked save for a stocking cap and mask, the anonymous woman dared Trump’s internal security squad to assault or arrest her simply for being there in silent challenge, Molly Roberts writes for the Washington Post:
Legs splayed across the pavement opposite an exquisitely equipped line of officers, she was everything they were not: natural where the camouflage-clad cops were unnatural, vulnerable where they were armored. Perhaps at a loss for how to contend with an unclothed female body, they shot rubber balls at her feet — and then, dumbstruck or defeated, retreated.
[…]
These forces the president has dispatched to defend a city that hasn’t asked for defending, dressed up to take down an enemy army that barely exists, are doing exactly what the utterly exposed woman was doing right back at them: putting on a show.
Like everything else Trump has done in his life, his “Cops” revival is ham-fisted and destined to fail. The Department of Homeland Security could end up the latest in Trump’s string of bankruptcies and cancelled in January.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.