Police state Trump

I hadn't really thought much before about how GOP friendly the average American police officer would be, but I see that the Financial Times had a story in 2018 noting how police unions backed Trump:

Donald Trump assiduously courted the law-and-order vote in 2016, earning an endorsement from the national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). At a time when police shootings and viral videos of cops behaving badly were sparking rolling, racially charged protests — most recently in Sacramento following the death of Stephon Clark — Trump channeled the emotions of a group that felt under threat. New research shows that Trump swung tens of thousands of votes and flipped at least one state on the backs of cops alone....

Harvard researcher Michael Zoorob found that police officer political engagement jumped from 2012 to 2016 on volunteering for a campaign, displaying a political sign and donating money, while the general public was less engaged. His research analyzed the Trump law-enforcement phenomenon in a paper he has submitted for publication. Zoorob found that places where police unions are strongest had the biggest shift from Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, to Trump. Critically, his analysis found the police mobilization effect accounted for more than 13,000 votes in Michigan — greater than Trump’s narrow margin of victory over Clinton — and more than 27,000 votes in Pennsylvania.

Zoorob, a graduate student in the school of government, attributes this to the way Trump talked about the police. “Those peddling the narrative of cops as a racist force in our society — a narrative supported with a nod by my opponent — share directly in the responsibility for the unrest in Milwaukee, and many other places within our country,” Trump said in an August 2016 speech in a mostly white Wisconsin suburb, shortly after a police shooting in nearby Milwaukee. “They have fostered the dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.”

A month later, the FOP, the nation’s largest police union, endorsed Trump. The union did not endorse in 2012, freezing out Romney for supporting an Ohio bill that would have sapped power from public employee unions. In office, Trump has continued his pro-police rhetoric — notably encouraging law enforcement officers to be “rough” on suspects in a speech in Long Island last year — and delivered a policy win by giving them more access to military surplus equipment, which the Obama administration had restricted in the wake of the shooting and subsequent unrest in Ferguson.

I know there are some commentators fearing that the riots may help Trump win again as the "law and order" President,  but I find that hard to believe, mainly because his response has emphasised his immaturity yet again:

Honestly, it's like having an 8 year old boy (one who barely passes his English class) as President.