Our Quote of the Day comes from The Bulwark’s William Kristol writing about Donald Trump’s putting Washington D.C. police under federal control and calling out the National Guard:
The president did say that under the new order of things in Washington, the police will be “allowed to do whatever the hell they want” to secure the streets. But that’s just performative pro-police rhetoric, right? It may sound like the actual legitimization of police brutality. But that couldn’t happen here.
After all, the leaders of our major institutions would speak out, forcefully and in unison, against it. Here in the United States of America, our leaders would not avert their gaze. They would not keep their heads down. They would not simply go about their business. They would not shirk their civic duty.
Here in the United States, distinguished liberals would not tie themselves in knots with hand-wringing. Here in the United States, proud conservatives would not put party over principle. The heirs of Franklin Roosevelt and of Ronald Reagan would join hands and come together in defense of liberty.
Surely we Americans would rise to the occasion. This is not Belgrade or Bangkok, Caracas or Cairo. This is not the 1920s or the 1930s. Surely it couldn’t happen now. It couldn’t happen here.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.