Since the 1968 presidential campaign of Richard Nixon and especially since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has engaged in grievance politics, fearmongering and criminalizing the identities of nonwhite people. Behind the rhetoric of “law and order,” the GOP has successfully weaponized the law against the weak, the powerless and the marginal on behalf of white people, the powerful, and other privileged classes.
When it comes to the rhetoric and practice of “law and order,” as I argue in my forthcoming book “Indicting the 45th President,” the primary differences between the GOP of old and the Trumpian party of today is that the latter has sought to weaponize the law against law enforcement itself, especially the Department of Justice and the “deep state.” Perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than the 147 Republican House members who voted not to certify the 2020 election.
