GOP Can’t Bother to Pretend to Care About American Cities
At 9:30 p.m., as hundreds of protesters marched down Kenosha’s streets to protest a police shooting that left 29-year-old Jacob Blake paralyzed, National Association of Police Organizations President Michael McHale took to the stage at the Republican convention to chide Democrats for disrespecting America’s police officers.
“Chaos results when elected officials in cities like Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York make the conscious and very public decision not to support law enforcement,” McHale told millions of Americans who have watched as scenes of police violence consume our daily lives. “The violence we are seeing…isn’t happening by chance; it’s the direct result of elected leaders refusing to allow law enforcement to protect our communities.”
McHale, whose lobbying group represents over 250,000 active and retired police officers and their unions, broke with precedent to endorse Donald Trump this election cycle. And he spoke to Americans not as the voice of public servants sworn to protect, but as the leader of an openly Trumpist paramilitary.