Trump's Plan to Make Police More Violent: “American Death Squads”

For years, Donald Trump had hoped — and tried — to implement programs and federal policies that would allow America's police forces to act with impunity and with cartoonish brutality. When he was president, Trump repeatedly shouted in the Oval Office about the idea of ​​carrying out mass executions and having U.S. police units kill scores of suspected drug dealers and criminals in gunfights in urban areas, with police then piling those bodies on the street to give the gangs a pass to send a dark message.

The ideas sounded so grisly and paramilitary that some Trump administration officials privately referred to them as his plans for “American death squads.”

In the years since he left office and his efforts to remain in power, the former president's desire to finish the job of policing that his first administration couldn't or wouldn't have only grown stronger. In the final weeks of his campaign to retake the White House in 2024, Trump is now explicitly committed to encouraging domestic law enforcement to take action — an idea that immediately drew comparisons to the dystopian horror film series this week. The Purge – “a truly violent day” of policing to put the fear of God into retail thieves.

With his remarks at his campaign rally, Trump wasn't just trying to let off steam or sound harsh to his fans. His vision for a far more brutal standard of American policing is fundamental to understanding the former — and perhaps future — president's deeply authoritarian policy proposals that have throttled the U.S. political landscape and society for nearly a decade. And if Trump and his party defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in this year's presidential race, he and some of his closest allies are already planning to build on what Trump tried in his first term and pursue law enforcement as brutally as possible.

According to lawyers, advisers and other sources who have spoken to the ex-president about policing since last year, Trump has discussed or been briefed on various options for shaping law enforcement in the blood-obsessed MAGA image he captured in November of this year the White House back.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, then-President Trump toyed with the idea of ​​his administration withdrawing federal funding from Democratic-majority cities – such as Washington, D.C. and Seattle – which he saw as “disempowerment.”[ing]” their own police departments. If Trump secures a second term, sources say he has privately stressed several times over the last year and a half that his administration should quickly commit to this supposedly “police-friendly” policy of holding hostages.

In mid-2020, as mass protests spread following the killing of George Floyd and a sprawling movement for racial justice spread across the country, Trump's White House considered taking control of police forces in Washington, D.C., during unrest in the capital, but the administration As a result, hectic resistance from the city backed down. Trump has repeatedly told his advisers and confidants in recent years that he wants the police to “dominate” (in Trump's words) in the way city officials do if he is re-elected and in Washington If a new level of crime or unrest was deemed too extreme, he could declare an emergency and personally take control of the D.C. Police Department.

In addition, just in recent months, Trump has spoken with close advisers and longtime allies in Congress and the Senate about how a Trump-controlled government would undo the work of Obama- and Biden-era officials in the Justice Department and civil rights departments, who have investigated police departments for rampant discrimination, brutality and other abuses.

A new Trump administration would not only cease and desist from conducting such investigations; In recent months, the former president has discussed with at least one MAGA lawmaker on Capitol Hill the prospect of compiling a list of police “warriors” who have been federally charged or convicted of crimes that Trump calls “wrong” or ” politically correct”. ” and the passage of a round of clemency and pardons by the executive branch at the start of a second term.

According to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, since Trump accepted the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police last month, the ex-president floated and argued at a private dinner the idea of ​​abolishing internal affairs departments in local police departments Many police officers spend too much time worrying that an internal affairs officer will intrusively investigate them or “ruin” their lives just because the officers were “doing their job.”

It is unclear whether a president could abolish internal affairs offices even if he or she wanted to. Ironically, abolishing internal affairs is a proposal that has been floated at times by progressive police reform advocates — although, unlike Trump, they propose replacing police investigative units with independent outside investigators.

In addition, Trump has frequently spoken of giving police “immunity from prosecution” — particularly in the context of the central role he attributes to police officers in carrying out the largest mass deportation regime in U.S. history.

Those who study the history of fascism warn that such promises should give us chills. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor at New York University, an expert on Mussolini's fascist rule in Italy, and the author of Strong men. “The fascists did the same thing,” she says. “They made a deal with the police.”

In Trump's case, she points out, he is exploiting the “worst part of our institutions,” namely the racially diverse and often brutal realities of American policing. There is a name for what Trump is proposing. “This is called 'authoritarian business,'” says Ben-Ghiat. “He woos the police by saying, 'You will pay no price for the violence I demand of you.' He arranges these things in advance.”

When asked for comment on this story, the Trump campaign said it had nothing directly to add to the former president's Clean cinematic political recommendations. Instead, Team Trump reiterated its promise that the twice-impeached ex-president and convicted felon would restore his brand of “law and order” to America – an incarnation of law and order that puts himself and his friends above the law and his friends punishes enemies.

“President Trump has always been the law and order president and he continues to reiterate the importance of enforcing existing laws,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “Otherwise, it is complete anarchy that Kamala Harris has created in some of these communities across America, particularly during her time as…” [California] Attorney General when she encouraged criminals.”

Trump's support of police officers, like everything Trump-related, comes with strings attached. When it comes to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol during the Trump-incited riots on Jan. 6, in recent years he has privately derided them as “cunts” if they spoke out against Trump. But when it comes to militarized police forces seeking to commit excessively violent, potentially unconstitutional or illegal acts against suspects, Trump is almost always on board and has tried to get the full force of the White House behind him.

Since the start of his first term, Trump has publicly glorified police brutality, directly encouraging officers to behave more violently than they already do and making it one of his biggest lines of laughter and applause at rallies.

“When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you see them being thrown in brutally. I said, 'Please don't be too nice,'” the then-president told the assembled law enforcement in a speech he gave on Long Island, New York, in 2017. “If you put someone in the car and you…” You protect their head, you know, like you put your hand over it [their head] … “Don't hit their head and they just killed someone, don't hit their head. I said, 'You can take your hand away, okay?'”

Trump continued: “I have to tell you, you know, the laws are so terrible against us because they've been put in place for years to protect the criminals.” Entirely made to protect the criminal. Not the officials. If you do something wrong, you’re in more danger than them.”

At a campaign stop in North Carolina in 2020, the then-president blessed the highly controversial killing of Antifa activist Michael Reinoehl, telling the applauding audience, “We sent the U.S. marshals, it took 15 minutes,” adding, ” We caught him.” . They knew who he was, they didn't want to arrest him. Fifteen minutes, that was over.”

In crafting his violent police fantasies, Trump drew inspiration, he openly boasted, from autocratic leaders like Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw mass extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, and Xi Jinping of China.

In February 2023, Trump and his presidential campaign released bullet points of what he described as his “plan to end crime and restore law and order.” His agenda items included promises such as directing “the DOJ to open civil rights investigations into left-wing federal prosecutors, such as those in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, to determine whether they have illegally engaged in racist law enforcement activities.”

His campaign also reminded his supporters that “President Trump is committed to using federal resources, including the National Guard, to restore law and order when local law enforcement refuses to act,” emphasizing that he will, should He brought heavily armed military units back to the White House, which he was able to quickly unleash to support his demands for police impunity.