Trump follows his 'American carnage' instincts in staunchly pro-police speech amid new protests

Analysis: President's view of the breakdown of US society is one of the consistent parts of his twisting and turning term. It was on display again on Tuesday

Once a law-and-order president, always a law-and-order president.

Donald Trump and his top West Wing aides spent weeks debating whether he should give a national address on race after coast-to-coast protests over police officers killing black people, mostly triggered by George Floyd dying in Minneapolis under the knee of a white officer.

The president was resistant. He has complained to senior aides that he is not comfortable delivering remarks to a mostly empty Oval Office from behind the Resolute Desk. He did so on 11 March, trying to reassure the country about the coronavirus. In part because of his bungling parts of the speech, that was widely considered a failure.

So he and his team settled on a midday address on Tuesday ahead of signing an executive order putting in place policing reforms – even though it appeared to fall well short of the kinds of changes protesters and many Democrats in congress want. They say the coronavirus is one of two epidemics facing black Americans. The other is police officers killing black Americans, they say, practically begging Mr Trump to at least urge the country for calm and embrace bold policing reforms.

There were signs as Mr Trump began speaking from the White House’s Rose Garden that he might do something he rarely has during the three-plus years of his term: at least play the part of the consoler-in-chief.

“I’ve just concluded a meeting with incredible families, just incredible families, that have been through so much. The families of Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver, Cameron Lamb, and Everett Palmer. These are incredible people. Incredible people. And it’s so sad,” Mr Trump said.

“Many of these families lost their loved ones in deadly interactions with police. To all of the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourn by your side,” he added. “Your loved ones will not have died in vain. We are one nation. We grieve together, and we heal together. I can never imagine your pain or the depth of your anguish, but I can promise to fight for justice for all of our people.”

The GOP president who has so riled minority groups and Democrats since he announced his presidential candidacy five years ago to the date contended his remarks and executive order were about “pursuing common sense and ... fighting for a cause like we seldom get the chance to fight for: We have to find common ground.”

But he immediately dashed any remaining hopes that he is interested in injecting his presidency – composed of one part “America first“ mercantilism and another “law-and-order” conservatism – with what many would consider a core role for a chief executive: Unifying a diverse, divided and frustrated country.

“But I strongly oppose the radical and dangerous efforts to defend [defund], dismantle, and dissolve our police departments, especially now when we’ve achieved the lowest recorded crime rates in recent history,” he said. (A White House-prepared transcript added defund in brackets; Mr Trump was supposed to use the bracketed word to take a jab at the “defund the police” movement.)

“Americans know the truth: without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy. And without safety, there is catastrophe,” he said. “We need leaders at every level of government who have the moral clarity to state these obvious facts. Americans believe we must support the brave men and women in blue who police our streets and keep us safe.”

Most of Mr Trump’s roughly 25-minute Rose Garden event focused on defending police departments – when he wasn’t talking up the economy, oddly contending “school choice is the civil rights statement of the year, of the decade, and probably beyond”, and falsely claiming scientists have developed an Aids vaccine.

By all measures, the president’s remarks failed to match the national mood – even among Republican voters he will need to turn out in big numbers in eight or so states that political operatives say will decide his general election race against former vice president Joe Biden.

An overwhelming majority of Americans want major policing reforms, including a majority of GOP voters, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos survey. Those changes include a national ban on police officers using chokeholds against suspects and an end to racial profiling policies.

Other polls released last week showed nearly 70 per cent of Americans, including most Republicans, disapprove of Mr Trump’s response to Mr Floyd’s killing and the subsequent protests in many major US cities.

Those still expecting Mr Trump to sound like other presidents in times of crises should by now have ample evidence that this one thinks very differently than his predecessors. Though he is a reportedly insatiable student of polling data, he showed anew on Tuesday he will follow his gut instincts above all else.

Just consider that Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner asked him this last week in Dallas: “You look at me and I’m Harris on TV, but I’m a black woman. I’m a mom, and you know. You’ve talked about it, but we haven’t seen you come out and be that consoler in this instance. And the tweets. ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts.’ Why those words?”

The phrase is rife with negative connotations for black Americans stemming from the civil rights movement. Mr Trump contended he learned the phrase from a former mayor of Philadelphia rather than a former mayor of Miami. But to understand the philosophy that might be called “Trumpism”, one must study the 45th president’s descriptions of his own thinking.

“But when the looting starts, it often times means there’s going to be shooting, there’s going to be death, there’s going to be killing. And it’s a bad thing. And it’s also used as a threat,” Mr Trump told her. “But if you think about it, look at what happened, how people were devastated with the looting. Look at what happened.”

Despite all the twists and turns of his dramatic presidency, one thing has remained constant: Donald John Trump is obsessed with, as was the theme of his inaugural address, what he sees as widespread “American carnage“.

The man who recently told the country he is “your law-and-order president” resorted on Tuesday to an election-year sales pitch that he is, now more than ever, the lone person who can properly clean it up.