Trump’s law-and-order campaign relies on a historic American tradition of racist and anti-immigrant politics

Law-and-order is central theme of President Trump’s reelection campaign.  Austin Sarat on The Conversation ties his rhetoric on crime to historic traditions in American politics.  He writes:

“For a student of the politics of law and order, the president’s rhetoric is familiar. It builds on, and borrows from, a strand of thinking running back to the early years of the republic.

Throughout this nation’s history, appeals to law and order have been as much about defending privilege as dealing with crime. They have been used in political campaigns to stigmatize racial, ethnic and religious groups and resist calls for social justice made by, and on behalf of, those groups.”

Sarat elaborates:

“Many accounts of President Trump’s law-and-order campaign trace its roots back to Nixon’s 1968 campaign. But I believe it has an older pedigree, running much deeper into America’s past.

In his mobilization of resentments against immigrants and others who threaten `the American way of life,’ the president is very much within the centuries-old tradition of law-and-order appeals.

In another sense, he is inverting modern law-and-order politics. To date, it has been used by challengers in campaigns designed to appeal to people who believe that they are losing ground as society changes.”

KJ