Adventures in completely missing the point

Various police-stroking organizations hope they’ll have better luck with Trump than they ever did with Obama. Unfortunately they probably will. Clutching to his breast that ol’ false dichotomy, Obama’s condemnation of police abuses far too often took the form of praise for the freelance thugs, which wasn’t much help. But I expect Trump to go all law’n’order to the point of routine stop and frisk for little old black ladies. In their own living rooms, wouldn’t really surprise me.

The title of the Washington Times piece tells me it’s not just the cops who miss the point…

Police hopeful Donald Trump will usher in new era of respect for law enforcement

The piece points out two things on the cops’ wish list, merrily skipping past how mutually exclusive they are…

“The first thing, and something Mr. Trump has already done well, is use the bully pulpit to improve the perception of police officers,” said James Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

Under the Obama administration, law enforcement leaders say their officers have felt unfairly characterized as villains amid the movement for policing reform and have become targets for hostility.

“We welcome a reset button,” said Ron Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and a former assistant director of the FBI.

Uh huh. So do I. And yet – presumably as a part of their quest for this ‘improved perception,’ guess what they also want?

Beyond tamping down what police believe has been hostile rhetoric, departments are encouraging the Trump administration to back changes that will allow them to better arm themselves, expand access to training and increase penalties for those who attack officers.

One topic of discussion among departments has been the resumption of a program that allowed them access to the Defense Department’s surplus military gear.

…

Under the Obama administration’s restrictions, items like grenade launchers, bayonets and armored tracked vehicles were banned from transfer to police departments.

…the use of which put a cherry on top of complaints people on the edges of society, as well as virtually all black Americans, have made against cops for over a century. Complaints which were successfully shuffled off into the crank file until cops started showing up on national TV looking like the villain’s minions in a Resident Evil sequel…

My obvious point being that President Trump couldn’t ‘usher in a new era of respect for law enforcement’ if that were the sole aim of his entire administration. Only cops can do that, and they won’t. The ‘war on stuff’ rhetoric kind of got out of hand when cops started dealing with ‘civilians’ as if they were actually fighting an actual war against them. You don’t have to look very hard to see where people might get the impression that Mr. Policeman is not their friend.

But you’ll never in life convince the police – or at least their spokesmen – of that. And so if anything changes, it’s likely to only get worse.