It’s not the police, but the people they stop, who can prevent a detention from turning into a tragedy.
Working the street, I can’t even count how many times I withstood curses, screaming tantrums, aggressive and menacing encroachments on my safety zone, and outright challenges to my authority. In the vast majority of such encounters, I was able to peacefully resolve the situation without using force. Cops deploy their training and their intuition creatively, and I wielded every trick in my arsenal, including verbal judo, humor, warnings and ostentatious displays of the lethal (and nonlethal) hardware resting in my duty belt. One time, for instance, my partner and I faced a belligerent man who had doused his car with gallons of gas and was about to create a firebomb at a busy mall filled with holiday shoppers. The potential for serious harm to the bystanders would have justified deadly force. Instead, I distracted him with a hook about his family and loved ones, and he disengaged without hurting anyone. Every day cops show similar restraint and resolve incidents that could easily end up in serious injuries or worse.
Sometimes, though, no amount of persuasion or warnings work on a belligerent person; that’s when cops have to use force, and the results can be tragic. We are still learning what transpired between Officer Darren Wilson and Brown, but in most cases it’s less ambiguous — and officers are rarely at fault. When they use force, they are defending their, or the public’s, safety.
Even though it might sound harsh and impolitic, here is the bottom line: if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me. Most field stops are complete in minutes. How difficult is it to cooperate for that long?
Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively walking towards me.I know it is scary for people to be stopped by cops. I also understand the anger and frustration if people believe they have been stopped unjustly or without a reason. I am aware that corrupt and bully cops exist. When it comes to police misconduct, I side with the ACLU: Having worked as an internal affairs investigator, I know that some officers engage in unprofessional and arrogant behavior; sometimes they behave like criminals themselves. I also believe every cop should use a body camera to record interactions with the community at all times. Every police car should have a video recorder. (This will prevent a situation like Mike Brown’s shooting, about which conflicting and self-serving statements allow people to believe what they want.) And you don’t have to submit to an illegal stop or search. You can refuse consent to search your car or home if there’s no warrant (though a pat-down is still allowed if there is cause for suspicion). Always ask the officer whether you are under detention or are free to leave. Unless the officer has a legal basis to stop and search you, he or she must let you go. Finally, cops are legally prohibited from using excessive force: The moment a suspect submits and stops resisting, the officers must cease use of force.
But if you believe (or know) that the cop stopping you is violating your rights or is acting like a bully, I guarantee that the situation will not become easier if you show your anger and resentment. Worse, initiating a physical confrontation is a sure recipe for getting hurt. Police are legally permitted to use deadly force when they assess a serious threat to their or someone else’s life. Save your anger for later, and channel it appropriately. Do what the officer tells you to and it will end safely for both of you. We have a justice system in which you are presumed innocent; if a cop can do his or her job unmolested, that system can run its course. Later, you can ask for a supervisor, lodge a complaint or contact civil rights organizations if you believe your rights were violated. Feel free to sue the police! Just don’t challenge a cop during a stop.
An average person cannot comprehend the risks and has no true understanding of a cop’s job. Hollywood and television stereotypes of the police are cartoons in which fearless super cops singlehandedly defeat dozens of thugs, shooting guns out of their hands. Real life is different. An average cop is always concerned with his or her safety and tries to control every encounter. That is how we are trained. While most citizens are courteous and law abiding, the subset of people we generally interact with everyday are not the genteel types. You don’t know what is in my mind when I stop you. Did I just get a radio call of a shooting moments ago? Am I looking for a murderer or an armed fugitive? For you, this might be a “simple” traffic stop, for me each traffic stop is a potentially dangerous encounter. Show some empathy for an officer’s safety concerns. Don’t make our job more difficult than it already is.
Community members deserve courtesy, respect and professionalism from their officers. Every person stopped by a cop should feel safe instead of feeling that their wellbeing is in jeopardy. Shouldn’t the community members extend the same courtesy to their officers and project that the officer’s safety is not threatened by their actions?
Let’s talk about what that caucus platform tells us…..
Published: April 19, 2021
Transcript:
well howdy there internet people it’sbeau againso today we’re going to talk about thatwould-be caucusthat may or may not happen in the futurenow it’s kind of up in the airand what it means because there’s a lotof peoplewho want to dismiss ittake it as a joke or justsay that it’s not that important becauseoh it’s justthat group of people and that’s just theway they are and all of that stuffi’m going to suggest that’s a really badideai’m going to suggest that’s very unwiseif you don’t know what i’m talking aboutgreen to hear her tell it had adocument that was leaked by her staffersit wasn’t ready yetwasn’t ready to go out to the public andmaybe she hadn’t even read it and maybeit was developed by you know someoutside group and sheshe just didn’t even know sure let’spretend we believe that for a momentthat’s worse that’s worseif it had just been her sure she’s thespace laser ladykind of grown to expect it from her butthe idea that it’s some outside groupthat’s willing to put out a documentlike that that has the ear of people incongressoh that’s a concern i want to know whothat group isi want to know who else in congress theytalked tothat didn’t answer any questions itcreated moreand their concerning ones the otherconcernis the deafening silence that came fromthe republican party once that platformsurfacedjust a bunch of overt racist garbage andthe overwhelming majority said nothingher colleaguesthey said nothing sure you had somein the leadership step forward and sayoh this isn’t us we’re the party oflincoln orwhatever but most were deadquiet becausewhat that tells me is thathad it been received well had it beenpolitically advantageousfor them to be okay with it they wouldhave beenif they thought it helped their careerthat’s a concernyou know before the election i said mybiggest fearwas that biden wins but not in alandslidehe doesn’t win big enough to send themessagethat trumpism isn’t uh politicallytenableit’s not a winning strategy that didn’thappen he didn’t winbig not by big enough numbers to sendthat messageand then the other part of the fear wasthat because he wonpeople would think it was over thisdocument shows it’s notmy big concern was that all thathappenedand then the next person who picked upthe mantle of trumpismwould be smart they wouldn’tbroadcast every move on twitterthey’d be effective i want to know whothis group isit’s the same stuff could be lifted fromany of the most horrible groupsthroughout historybecause it’s the same strategy you takethe majorityyou get them kicking down at some groupthat you can easily marginalizeand that motivates that base the thingisonce that group gets in powerthe people using that strategy thatmajoritythat they energize that base they’regonna demandthat those in power do somethingabout that scapegoated groupand that’s when really horrible thingshappeni would suggest that dismissing thisas the space laser ladythat’s uh that’s a bad idea we do thatat our own perilyou can be outraged at the content youshould bebut you should also take it as a warningthat you have to stay politically activebecause those who want that brand ofauthoritarianismthey are still out there and apparentlythey have the year of people in congressanyway it’s just a thought y’all have agood day
‘The emergence of a third party is among us’ – Interview with Lincoln Project Co-Founder Rick Wilson
Joe Biden won the US presidential election with 306 electoral votes. But incumbent President Donald Trump has yet to concede, and the Republican Party seems to be at a crossroads after four years of Trumpism. What direction will the GOP take going forward?
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson offers a very bleak outlook into the GOP’s future. He says ‘the Republican party has sold out itself to Trump’ and what follows Trump will be more dangerous, because it will be more sophisticated.00:00
trump supporters rallying for him again
00:03
they won’t accept that their president
00:04
lost the elections
00:06
and they’re determined to keep him as
00:08
their leader
00:09
around 73 million americans voted for
00:12
trump
00:13
making them a formidable force of force
00:15
that also
00:16
threatens to run out of control
00:19
he loves america he loves america he
00:22
does not quit on america
00:24
and that’s why america will not quit on
00:26
him
00:27
i’d like trump to start a new party if
00:30
he wanted to
00:31
the republican party is changing real
00:32
fast so we’re
00:34
we’re gonna be represented by the
00:35
soldiers the veterans uh the
00:37
hard-working people of this country
00:39
not by the corrupt politicians that sit
00:42
up here and get fat on our money
00:44
and steal everything from us
00:48
there are many who want to take the
00:49
republican party down a more
00:51
moderate path to strengthen their case
00:54
they talk about this man abraham lincoln
00:58
he was the president who won the civil
01:00
war and ended slavery
01:02
and he was a republican he is the man
01:05
anti-trump republicans turn to when they
01:08
want to invoke
01:09
reason and moral values into present day
01:12
arguments
01:14
the lincoln project is a political
01:16
action committee
01:17
set up by former republicans to prevent
01:20
donald trump
01:21
being re-elected i want to hear their
01:24
thoughts on the future of the gop
01:26
from rick wilson one of the co-founders
01:29
how could donald trump happen
01:33
well donald trump was not just about the
01:35
republican party it was about american
01:36
culture
01:37
and this is a country that has become
01:39
largely addicted to
01:41
and mediated by reality television and
01:44
so
01:44
the man they saw on the apprentice for
01:46
14 years
01:48
on television looked competent smart
01:52
steady brilliant negotiator great deal
01:54
maker great businessman
01:56
of course we all know in the real world
01:59
that was never
01:59
even close to donald trump’s actual
02:01
character or who he really is
02:03
as a person and a leader but that was
02:06
something that
02:07
between fox and reality television
02:09
republican voters were insulated in this
02:12
uh sphere of irreality of fantasy
02:16
and so donald trump uh reached the
02:19
republican
02:20
presidential stage at a moment where
02:24
where republican voters had become
02:25
increasingly isolated from reality of
02:27
any kind
02:28
and had become increasingly addicted to
02:30
the kind of defiant
02:32
uh oppositional nature of
02:35
fox news and of their own facebook
02:38
groups and their own online
02:39
communities and as those moments um
02:43
you know evolved in the 2016 election
02:46
it became harder and harder for actual
02:48
republicans who had
02:50
you know the ideological predicates of
02:51
the past limited government
02:54
personal responsibility you know strong
02:56
international relations and good
02:58
relationships with our allies
03:00
all of those things were washed away
03:02
because donald trump
03:04
gave them entertainment and
03:07
i mean you you are a former republican
03:10
was there any sense
03:12
how dangerous it could be letting him
03:15
in well i was screaming about how
03:18
dangerous he was since 2015
03:21
and by the by the middle of his
03:24
administration by around 2018
03:26
there had been a massive schism in the
03:28
party there were only two types of
03:30
people left
03:31
those who understood how dangerous he
03:33
was and would speak
03:34
and the vast majority who understood how
03:36
dangerous he was and wouldn’t speak
03:38
you know there’s there’s a secret here
03:40
that most republicans the vast majority
03:42
of the elected officials
03:44
do not like donald trump they are not
03:45
trumpists they are afraid of them
03:48
but they don’t like him they don’t
03:49
regard him or admire him
03:51
now i will say that that doesn’t fix the
03:53
problem
03:54
because with donald trump there is never
03:58
a limit to which he will press these
03:59
folks as we saw this week in america
04:02
where
04:02
17 republican attorneys general in the
04:05
states
04:05
um went out and and pushed hard
04:09
to to have the supreme court invalidate
04:13
the 2020
04:14
election now these people they’ve
04:16
abandoned
04:17
all of their you know former political
04:19
and ideological predicates
04:21
for trump uh and so what you’ve seen is
04:24
a radical transformation of the gop
04:26
into the trump party what what should
04:29
the gop
04:30
do with all these trump supporters i
04:32
mean 73 million voted for him maybe not
04:34
all trump supporters but
04:36
you know i mean what should what should
04:39
the
04:39
the gop do luckily it’s not my problem
04:42
anymore
04:44
you know good riddance um but look
04:47
they have to have a painful
04:49
reconciliation with what they have done
04:51
there has to be a look back at the way
04:54
they have corrupted the party on trump’s
04:56
behalf
04:57
and until they do that i don’t think
04:58
there’s a real solution
05:00
going forward because he has been such a
05:03
transformative figure
05:04
the republican base vote the republican
05:07
the ordinary republican voters there’s
05:09
only one thing they hate more
05:11
than a democrat and that’s a republican
05:13
who hates donald trump
05:15
and so they’re going to be driving the
05:18
party further and further into the
05:19
trumpet space which is authoritarian
05:21
which is nationalist which is highly
05:24
regimented around the obedience to the
05:26
dear leader
05:27
you know it has frightening historical
05:29
precedence and what i worry about as a
05:31
former republican and knowing the sort
05:32
of character of the people still in the
05:34
party
05:35
i’m worried about the more competent
05:37
smart
05:38
presentable version of trump that’s
05:40
going to come down the pike in a few
05:42
years
05:43
that to me is um
05:46
an enormously concerning uh impact of
05:48
trumpism
05:50
what could come out of that asking as a
05:52
german
05:53
well yeah what could go wrong as i like
05:56
to say
05:57
um yeah those sort of things as i said
06:00
there are a lot of historical precedents
06:02
that are not good
06:03
um and not just the german precedent
06:05
there are many many other nations
06:07
um that that have gone down this
06:09
authoritarian statism
06:11
uh and it always leads to an abuse of
06:15
power it always
06:16
at the minimum two abuses of power uh at
06:18
the maximum to the worst case scenarios
06:21
and and i’m afraid that trump has
06:24
conditioned a generation of republicans
06:26
to believe
06:27
that if they don’t get their way that
06:29
they don’t need to work within the
06:30
constitution of the united states that
06:32
they can go an extra constitutional
06:34
extrajudicial extra political route
06:36
which may involve violence
06:38
which may involve the generation of of
06:40
enormous risks
06:41
for the future of one of the world’s
06:43
longest running and
06:44
most robust democracies rick um
06:48
i talked to republicans i have the
06:50
feeling that they are not understanding
06:53
what is going on
06:54
no a lot of them when you’re talking
06:56
about reconciliation but
06:58
from what i i mean experienced the last
07:00
couple of days
07:01
working on this piece i think that they
07:03
don’t quite
07:04
get it no they they don’t understand it
07:07
and they don’t understand that that
07:10
without donald trump
07:12
as the figurehead of their party they’re
07:14
going to lose a meaningful number of
07:16
their own voters
07:18
those voters have become members of a
07:20
trumpist movement a faction
07:22
if you will and that’s not going to go
07:25
away
07:26
his son will pick up the mantle when
07:27
donald trump dies or his daughter
07:30
or people that imitate him very closely
07:33
uh will pick up that mantle and there’s
07:35
nothing that can be done
07:37
about that because the republican party
07:40
has sold itself to trump
07:41
there is no institutional republican
07:43
party left to push back against trumpism
07:46
what does that mean politically for the
07:49
united states and for the rest of the
07:51
world so to speak
07:52
well it means that we have a that the
07:54
emergence of a third party
07:56
in the us is is upon us and that party
07:59
is not
08:00
an american party that party is
08:02
dedicated to authoritarianism
08:04
that party is dedicated to the worship
08:05
of a single family
08:07
um that party is is oppositional
08:11
to anything that gets in their political
08:13
way and that opposition manifests itself
08:16
in ways that are not traditionally seen
08:18
in the american political space
08:20
look the american political space has
08:22
long had a center left
08:24
and a center right and and the the edges
08:28
of both parties
08:29
were not terribly influential and there
08:32
was always a tug of war
08:34
between those center left center right
08:35
voices now
08:37
we have a voice on the extreme right of
08:39
trumpism
08:40
which is um which is driven by again
08:43
that oppositional defiance
08:45
of traditional norms and values and laws
08:49
it’s driven by a hatred of immigrants a
08:52
hatred of
08:54
various races it’s driven by a hatred of
08:58
the elite the educated the experts um
09:01
and that’s a recipe for a country
09:04
that has a major political party that
09:06
does not look like anything we’ve had in
09:08
our history
09:09
there’s never been a true large scale
09:12
i mean we had you know george lincoln
09:15
rockwell
09:16
you know and then we had some of the and
09:18
you had lindbergh in the bund
09:20
back in the 30s that was growing into a
09:22
political force
09:24
but they never manifested at the level
09:26
that the trumpest party is manifesting
09:27
itself
09:28
and that’s something that is that is
09:30
concerning a lot of americans who
09:31
believe
09:32
regardless of their ideology whether
09:34
they’re conservative or progressive or
09:36
whether they’re
09:37
moderate or they’re liberal it’s
09:39
concerning a broad spectrum of americans
09:41
to say
09:42
you know this is a pathway that leads to
09:45
a very bad outcome in this country
09:47
and the concern is rising and it’s right
09:49
to be it’s right to be rising
09:51
and that’s why our group the lincoln
09:52
project has stayed in this fight
09:55
we we know that defeating donald trump
09:57
was only the first step
09:58
trumpism is a more dangerous and more
10:00
pernicious movement
10:02
than anyone could have accounted for
10:04
even a couple years ago
10:05
but it has this very powerful allies in
10:07
the media it has a very powerful ally in
10:10
facebook which allows
10:11
all these these alt-right and
10:14
proto-fascist and
10:16
and and openly fascist groups like the
10:18
proud boys
10:19
to to organize and to use it as a
10:22
bullhorn and to proselytize and
10:24
and to propagandize the american people
10:27
and so we’re seeing
10:28
uh an enormous risk that what follows
10:30
trump is is more dangerous
10:32
because it’s more sophisticated than
10:34
donald trump ever was
10:36
last question rick um what should uh
10:40
the western world learn from this
10:42
example
10:44
you know how dangerous is it when you go
10:45
to bed with the devil as we say you know
10:47
sure and get out of it so what what is
10:49
your message kind of you know
10:51
well look there is there is a clear
10:52
message for for folks in europe
10:54
uh especially because there is a rising
10:58
uh tide of rescission from the
11:00
democratic norms
11:01
that define sort of the atlantic charter
11:04
field and the the eu’s
11:06
uh original mission that recision is
11:08
happening
11:09
all over europe i mean you have erdogan
11:11
in turkey who
11:12
is essentially a dictator um you have
11:15
people
11:16
um who are very alt-right who are who
11:18
are trying to
11:19
you know put on a suit and tie and it’s
11:21
not just the clownish sort of le pen
11:23
types it’s you know people who appear
11:26
presentable who say some of the right
11:27
things
11:28
but who are part of this global
11:30
alt-right movement this global
11:31
this global rising tide will zombasha in
11:35
in albania of all things there’s a guy
11:38
who you know looks presentable he
11:40
doesn’t come out you know wearing a an
11:42
armband
11:43
but the things he says and wants to do
11:45
are enormously dangerous
11:47
if you’re going to look at modern
11:49
european democracies or modern or modern
11:51
western democracies
11:52
writ large and these risk factors have
11:55
appeared in
11:56
asia in south and central america in the
11:58
united states obviously
12:00
and across europe and that’s one of the
12:02
reasons that again our group is fighting
12:04
so hard
12:05
to to in america now
12:08
increasingly abroad to face these kind
12:11
of challenges
12:12
from this from this far right uh
12:15
racially inflected movement
12:16
that has grown i mean look if you look
12:18
at the governments of albania and poland
12:20
and hungary
12:21
you are not looking at things that that
12:23
that the post-war
12:25
consensus would have recognized um as
12:28
embracing the values that that we all
12:31
believed
12:31
shaped the western civilization in the
12:33
in the years after world war
12:34
ii and in the years after the collapse
12:36
of the soviet union
12:38
and so it’s enormously troubling it’s a
12:40
fight that we’re in now and we’re going
12:41
to be in for
12:42
for apparently quite a long time are
12:44
there any leaders in the republican
12:46
party who could kind of take over again
12:48
do you see any figures there may be
12:50
leaders in the republican
12:52
party but it’ll be a smaller party i
12:54
mean look there are guys like mitt
12:56
romney
12:56
and adam kinzinger uh and and some of
12:59
the folks in georgia
13:01
who have said no the president not you
13:03
know was not cheated
13:05
um but that courage is
13:08
is very rare few and far between
13:11
i mean when you’ve only got uh 27
13:14
members of congress in the republican
13:16
side who have acknowledged that joe
13:17
biden won the election
13:19
you’ve got a much smaller party than you
13:20
once had so
13:22
as the conservative side splits the
13:24
trumpist party will be
13:26
two-thirds to five-eighths uh of
13:30
of what was the gop and there’ll be a
13:31
smaller romney sort of republican party
13:35
and that’s not an effective um that’s
13:38
not an effective political party at the
13:39
national scale
13:40
at that point that’s a disturbing
13:42
outlook
13:44
yeah i don’t sleep a lot so and did you
13:48
see like
13:49
how do you schedule how do you kind of
13:51
see the next kind of two years or so
13:53
evolve
13:53
what’s going to happen well i think
13:55
you’re going to see an awful lot of
13:57
republicans
13:58
trying to destroy joe biden’s
14:00
administration very quickly
14:01
they’re going to use legislative tactics
14:03
in the senate particularly
14:05
to deny joe biden the ability to do
14:08
coveted relief
14:10
or health care relief for our hospitals
14:13
and doctors and nurses who have suffered
14:15
so badly during the course of covet
14:17
you’re going to see them block his
14:18
appointments as much as they can
14:21
so their idea is to train wreck
14:25
joe biden’s administration the first two
14:27
years
14:28
so they can recapture the senate at the
14:30
same time you’re going to see a whole
14:31
crop
14:32
of new trump-ist style candidates
14:34
emerging tom cotton josh hawley marco
14:36
rubio mike lee
14:38
ted cruz they’re going to all be running
14:40
for president in 2022
14:42
and you’re going to have donald trump
14:43
and his he’s on paper running for
14:46
president
14:46
but you’re also going to see his son
14:48
preparing to run for president 2022
14:51
so there will be a strong set of
14:52
incentives to keep driving that
14:54
authoritarian statism and and that that
14:57
sort of new
14:58
fascism message of trumpism in the next
15:00
two years to four years
15:02
because that is where the republican
15:04
base has been transformed and that’s
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where those people will go and run to
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try to get their votes
15:10
rick thank you very much i hope we can
15:12
talk again in some
15:13
i would love to that’d be great this is
15:15
an ongoing conversation in the world
15:17
absolutely i’d love to i’d love to see
15:19
because this is kind of well this is
15:21
what we experience as you said in many
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other countries as well
15:24
so stay safe thank you very much you too
15:27
great to talk to you on this i’ll talk
15:28
to you soon
John W. Dean, “Authoritarian Nightmare”
John W. Dean served as White House counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973. During the Watergate scandal, his Senate testimony helped lead to Nixon’s resignation. Dean has written about Watergate in his New York Times bestsellers Blind Ambition and The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It. Among his other books are the national bestsellers Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience. A retired investment banker, Dean is now a columnist, commentator, and teacher in a continuing legal education program for attorneys, the Watergate CLE. He is a regular political and legal commentator on CNN News.
The Science of the Authoritarian personality
- submissive followers
- “double high” followers: domineering and opportunistically submissive
https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781612199054