"Just Comply": A Hannity Rule for Trump

The Mar-a-Lago search reveals deep hypocrisy in American policing

Hi there, Ari here,

My new piece for you is below. A bunch of new people just subscribed to this newsletter — because of the busy news cycle, or looking for summer reading? — so if you’re new, Welcome! There’s more on how this works here, and if you want receive all of my writing and updates, including music and culture pieces, subscribe here for the entire newsletter:

My new piece is about the the Mar-a-Lago search and complying with law enforcement…

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The Feds Took *Their Property* Back

The reverberations continue from the unprecedented search of Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago. The legal process and probe will last months or longer, and there are many open questions and issues.

Today I want to dig into just one area with you — how this search is revealing deep hypocrisy about American policing, and how that opens a lane for reforms that could save lives.

So, like, one bad thing, and one good thing.

Trump stands accused of stealing and illegally holding top secret property. It’s not his, which is why the government took it back. (That’s the short version, but that’s what DOJ says happened.) The government gave Trump a long time, and many chances, to just comply and return the property. After he defied, refused and allegedly lied about it, prosecutors got a judge to approve a search warrant.

Merrick Garland. c/o Getty Images.

Then agents (peacefully) searched the property. Attorney General Garland emphasized that step was taken only after Trump rebuffed efforts to resolve this with “less invasive means. He would not comply.

“Yes, Officer”

By defying law enforcement, Trump violated the advice so many conservatives have given. As Sean Hannity put it:

If the police officer gives you a command, ‘Please exit the car,’
You should say: ’Yes, officer… Okay, officer.”

Fellow Fox anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle echoed that, telling viewers “listen,” “just comply!”

That has been the standard conservative lecture to Americans across a spate of policing controversies — that everyone, innocent or guilty, should just do what the police tell you… no matter how aggressive they are.

It’s a common refrain after cases of police brutality — ‘If the victim had just listened, this would have never happened.’ (That’s what Lindsey Graham recently suggested).

Donald Trump and Sean Hannity. c/o Getty Images

Trump was given months to comply. So were his aides, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, who refused to comply with lawful subpoenas for months. All three were given deference, extra time, and peaceful treatment by law enforcement. And they are still raging about being subjected to the law — Navarro complained he was handcuffed and “shackled” — while Trump allies are openly threatening, menacing and sometimes attacking law enforcement for enforcing the law, because apparently “blue lives” don’t matter to them.

That’s a long ways from Hannity’s demand of “Yes, officer.”

Peter Navarro at court. c/o Getty Images.

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They know they are criminals who oppose police

Trump and those aides cited are powerful, well-connected White people.

The right wing lectures to comply were directed at citizens, with no connections, who are disproportionately Black and Brown people facing aggressive policing.

There’s a documented double standard here:

Lawless resistance for Trump elites, and regimented compliance or violence for regular citizens — and especially minorities.

And note, this is the same premise that animated Trump fans’ criminal violence in the January 6th attack.

Those people knew they were breaking the law, and attacking the police, and they expected to get away with it. (Again, “blue lives.”)

Some people said they were “surprised” by the sheer violence and attacks on police that day. Maybe so. But what is most telling is who was not shocked: The MAGA people doing those crimes — it was what they traveled there to do — and their leader, Trump, who was elated and praised them before, during and after.

It was about power and dominance and race for them.

They view the law as a way to enforce that right wing White supremacy. When it doesn't do that, they have little use for it. That is the deeper, more disturbing context for this political hypocrisy around the lawful search of Trump's home.

Which brings us to how the rest of the nation is policed. Consider some examples:

•  Walter Scott ran away from a traffic stopped for a broken brake light, and an officer killed him by shooting him in the back, for not complying.

• Terence Crutcher was complying with his hands raised when police shot him to death. (The officer was acquitted.)

• There is data on thousands of cases where police use force against non-violent suspects for a moment of non-compliance, compared to months of non-compliance in these other cases.

• Finally, Breonna Taylor was shot to death while sleeping because police did not use the “less intrusive means,” executing a no-knock warrant - which has since been found to be illegally obtained. (My newsletter on that is here.)

Breonna Taylor.

Special Police Treatment for People Who Attack Police?

If innocent Breonna Taylor or no-threat Walter Scott had been policed by the standard used for Guilty, Convicted Steve Bannon, they would be alive today.

I mentioned reform, and this is where it comes in.

The point here is not to foment more aggressive policing or unnecessary force. It is that these cases and contrasts show how less violent policing is not only possible - it is already happening. The issue is its selective, discriminatory use.

The recent debates may also be clarifying, showing reality-based Americans how much of the politicized framework about compliance is a ploy. Some of the people peddling it know that, others may be repeating what they hear. The law requires compliance, but it does not mandate injury or murder to achieve it.

And police can do a better and fairer job patrolling all people with restraint, rather than reserving that as some “special treat” for MAGA leaders launching violent attacks on police — which is a pretty odd group to merit “special treatment,” when you think about it.

P.S. Do you think the criticism of the Trump search is fair? Revealing?

Is different policing possible? Tell me and I will respond in the comments…

Here’s that related piece I mentioned:

A burning question right now is 50 years old