On the Republican Nationwide Conference in 2016, after Mr. Trump had captured the nomination, David Clarke, the Black sheriff of Milwaukee County, stood earlier than the group, carrying a skinny blue line flag pin on his uniform, and railed in opposition to the “anarchy” of the Black Lives Matter motion and the “collapse of social order.”
By the point Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election marketing campaign rolled round, the Black Lives Matter motion was resurgent within the wake of the demise of George Floyd, given contemporary urgency by the Trump presidency and a tougher edge by the dislocation brought on by Covid. The Trump marketing campaign solid the Democrats as enemies of legislation and order who sought to incubate riots in American cities and chaos on the border.
At a rally in Waukesha, Wis., the skinny blue line flag took middle stage, hanging above the group behind the lectern at which Mr. Trump spoke, within the place historically occupied by the American flag. In Macon, Ga., it hung vertically behind the stage in a diptych with the Stars and Stripes. At a rally in Bullhead Metropolis, Ariz., it festooned the bleachers flanking the rostrum, whereas an unlimited model, held aloft by a crane, waved excessive above the group. From the stage, Mr. Trump claimed that whereas the Democratic ticket stood with “rioters and vandals,” he stood with “the heroes of legislation enforcement.”
On the Republican Nationwide Conference, Vice President Mike Pence laid out the results of Mr. Trump dropping the election in stark, private phrases: “The arduous fact is you’ll not be protected in Joe Biden’s America. Beneath President Trump, we are going to at all times stand with those that stand on the skinny blue line.”
To defend Individuals from the conspiracy to steal the election and destroy the nation, Mr. Trump suggested that his supporters — the police, the army, bikers, building employees — would confront his enemies within the streets, rhetorically deputizing his allies as a legislation unto themselves: “They’re peaceable folks, and antifa and all — they’d higher hope they keep that approach.”
