Police Sign Up (Again) to be Grump's Blueshirts

 The cops are endorsing Grump, NBC

And we're not talking about endorsing him in 2016, which was dumb enough, or in 2020, by then obvious he was in fact an active threat to public safety and national security. But, now, in 2024, when we know Trump is the first convicted felon candidate for president in American history. We know he allied with Putin, a murderous dictator hostile to the US, in attempts to cheat in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, and was impeached for the second attempt. We know he instigated a violent failed coup attempt against the capitol police, injuring over a hundred police officers. We know he stole and refused to return boxes of top secret national security documents. We know his entire business empire is built on financial fraud. 

And, most directly relevant to the jobs of the police, we know Trump spreads violence against government officials, judges, election workers, immigrants, BLM protesters, LGBTQ+ people, anyone who opposes him politically. 

Of course the police, charged with protecting and serving public safety, should not be endorsing a violent criminal and an active threat to public safety and national security like Trump. His alliance with the police is a terrifying cliche of fascist movements since Mussolini. 

Okay, so defunding the police was not a good idea. Still weird how that one bad idea has seemed to scuttle and push aside entirely any of the great push for police reform in the summer of 2020. Especially when an action like this by the police screams out how badly we still need that police reform. 

We should assume that the cop who killed Sonya Massey, a cop who reportedly had worked for six different law enforcement agencies in the previous four years, and during which time he was charged twice with DUIs, was in good standing with the police union, right? 

Local Police and FBI Harass BLM Protesters While Ignoring MAGA Mass Murderer

The Colorado Springs police working with the FBI infiltrates a local social justice, BLM, fair housing community organization with undercover cop that looks like a goofy sex worker. They target peaceful protesters, arresting them for protesting police violence (an officer and possible FBI agent are caught on tape talking about putting a boot in the face of a local college professor participating in a protest march) and unaffordable housing. Basically, the local police and FBI are doing everything they can do to setup criminal dossiers on some unfortunate left liberal protesters, while at the same time dropping the investigation of a local bomb threat by a violent rightwing nutjob who goes on to murder a bunch of people in a MAGA hate-crime a month or so later, 

And then add this to the broader Orange Grump era context of the police and the conservative right: 1) The biggest police unions endorsed Trump in 2016 and again more than a year out from the 2020 election. 2) The Secret Service erased records of their internal communications around the Jan 6 insurrection. 3) There is evidence of cooperation between local police departments (Portland, for example) and violent bigot militia groups. 4) There are a staggering number of instances of police violence against unarmed US citizens and 5) Near total police intransigence against reforms to reduce police violence. This is concerning stuff. The kind of stuff from which fascist police states are made. 

Meanwhile, I gather from local media that the police are Quiet Quitting because of all the overwrought "Defund the Police" rhetoric from shrill, aggressive, overly dramatic BLM protesters and retired school teachers like me. And so "Backing the Blue" means more cops and less oversight or no reform because oversight and reform hurt police morale. It's either suffer the police Quiet Quitting or hire more cops and let them crack heads and do sweeps as they see fit. Local politics probably can't be this stupid but this is how it sounds in the local papers. 

Anyway, amazing story from Democracy Now and Colorado Springs. And reporter Trevor Aaronson and his podcast Alphabet Boys deserves some props too.