One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidency is his misuse of power to advance his political cause. He had peaceful protesters forcibly cleared from Lafayette Square so he could walk from the White House to a nearby church for a photo op. He claimed emergency powers to fund border wall construction that Congress refused to approve. And he leveraged the nation’s foreign policy muscle in a failed bid to pressure the president of Ukraine to discredit former Vice President Joe Biden.
None of this, however, is as corrosive to democracy and contemptuous of conservative principles as its deployment of the Department of Homeland Security’s police framework of staff cities to serve as timely aid to its “law and order” campaign.
These federal officers, dressed in full equipment (or, in some cases, army latticework and bullet evidence vests) have been in Portland, Oregon, for several weeks. They were not invited through local authorities. Trump recently announced that federal agents would be deployed to other cities, adding Chicago.
He certainly has an interest in federal protective services, such as the Portland Courthouse. But those agents are mistreated and do little but still arouse more hostility. Their sets have not been created to monitor demonstrations and are ill-prepared to do so.
“It would be a bloodless day in hell before I give my consent or accept an unsolicited and unsolicited intervention in one of my cities,” said Tom Ridge, former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and dhS secretary under President George W. Bush. “In fact, I’m not in favor of this action more or less, and in fact I don’t think DHS was designed for that goal in the first place.”
WILLIAM BARR: In Portland, the executive will have to consolidate the rule of law
In Portland, DHS agents pushed protests to grow and surrounded larger segments of the community, not just “anarchists who hate our country,” as Trump tweeted Sunday. The young protesters took to the streets. But the same goes for the elders, adding the “Mother’s Wall”, which sings “hands up, don’t shoot me.” The mayor of Portland shot last week.
In Chicago, officials must be sent for general purposes against the crime. As with the Portland protests, they are ill-prepared for this mission. They have no idea about the rhythm, either.
No one would rather be more concerned about this abuse of law enforcement than conservatives in principle. Throughout their lives, they believed that Washington did not know Wonderfuler and that the Republican Party would be for the return of forces to the states. They appreciate the Tenth Amendment as a wonderful principle of democracy, not just a little administrative management. The amendment states that a large apple force that is never specifically delegated to the executive is “reserved for states respectively, or for people.”
The other Americans can spot a tactic to move the problem of COVID-1 ravages and the Trump administration’s lousy paintings directly to combat it. They don’t take lightly who’s hunting to rule them.
And watch this episode for what it is: a shame for this country and for the presidency.
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