It is a picture that could hardly be drawn more sharply: While Donald Trump cracks down on demonstrators in Los Angeles protesting his immigration policies, one of his first acts in his second term was to pardon over a thousand individuals \u2013 including those who brutally attacked police officers on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to keep him in power. On Monday, Trump posted a martial warning on his social media platform: \u201cIF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT \u2013 and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!\u201d The message was directed at demonstrators in Los Angeles, where the National Guard and Marines have been deployed at his command. The contrast could hardly be starker: While Trump glorifies the violence of his supporters at the Capitol as \u201ca beautiful day,\u201d he threatens peaceful protesters with physical retaliation. It is a double standard that reveals much \u2013 and shows how selectively the president applies the rule of law when political loyalty is at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s behavior makes clear that he only values the rule of law when it serves his political interests,\u201d says Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University. The pardon covered over 1,000 individuals, including at least 276 who were convicted of assaulting police officers. Many of these attacks \u2013 with flagpoles, crutches, or bare fists \u2013 were captured on bodycams and surveillance footage. On that day, around 140 officers were injured \u2013 according to then-U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, it was \u201cthe largest coordinated assault on law enforcement in a single day in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While some of those pardoned had been convicted only of trespassing or similar offenses, Trump also dropped hundreds of cases against individuals who had not yet been tried. The message is clear: Those who fight for him enjoy impunity \u2013 even when committing violence against the state. \u201cThese people were extremely violent, and now the president acts as if it all meant nothing,\u201d says Mike Romano, former deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Washington. \u201cAnd at the same time, he uses the mere possibility of violence at other protests as a pretext to crack down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A White House spokesperson defended Trump\u2019s actions: \u201cThe president was elected to secure the border, empower federal officials, and restore law and order.\u201d But critics see it primarily as an attempt to stage chaos in order to consolidate power. Trump had already announced during his campaign that he would use civil unrest as a lever to claim sweeping executive powers. On Monday, he followed through \u2013 mobilizing a battalion of Marines to support the National Guard, which he deployed against the will of California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. The protests, initially confined to a small area in downtown Los Angeles, escalated after the troops arrived. Demonstrators blocked highways, set self-driving cars on fire, and pelted police with fireworks and debris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Romano warns of the long-term consequences of these double standards: \u201cIf the public gets the impression that the police serve only the president, it undermines trust in the rule of law.\u201d He recalls statements from Capitol rioters who believed police should let them into the building \u2013 after all, they had supported law enforcement\u2019s crackdown on anti-police protests in 2020. \u201cThis kind of transactional thinking is extremely dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Es ist ein Bild, das kaum sch\u00e4rfer gezeichnet sein k\u00f6nnte: W\u00e4hrend Donald Trump in Los Angeles mit harter Hand gegen Demonstrierende vorgeht, die gegen seine Einwanderungspolitik protestieren, hat er in einem seiner ersten Amtshandlungen seiner zweiten Amtszeit \u00fcber tausend Personen begnadigt \u2013 darunter jene, die am 6. Januar 2021 Polizisten brutal attackierten, um seine Macht […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40,7,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-x","category-topstory","category-trump-s-world"],"yoast_head":"\n