“The attack on the Capitol was the result of years of erosion of the line between fact and fiction and right and wrong,” said Rory Cooper, a Republican strategist. Mr Cooper argued that there is now an opening for a “conservative candidate” to finally decouple appeals to law and order from the selective enforcement of the Trump era, “but we are some way away from that time.”
Other Republicans insist that no reason has been lost on this issue – that the party is likely to have the upper hand in the eyes of voters. “I think Republicans have the benefit of law and order right now and still do it regardless of what happened at the Capitol,” said Chris Russell, a longtime Republican advisor and ad maker.
And should the Democrats “hold on to a message that defeats the police,” added Russell – although Mr Biden denounced it – Republican candidates are likely to continue to succeed in calling their party more committed to public safety and making it stronger to support law enforcement.
All of this is consistent with how some Republican lawmakers streamlined the attack on the Capitol. They insist that the sea of protesters and rioters was not the result of months of indulgence for the president’s lie that the election was stolen, did not reflect the core of the party, in fact did not reflect the party at all. Republican officials across the country have falsely claimed the deaths and damage were caused by Antifa.
Hogan Gidley, a President’s spokesman, argued that Mr Trump’s message of love did not include those who stormed the Capitol. “The President didn’t talk about these people. It was clearly the people who were there to peacefully gather and protest peacefully, ”said Mr Gidley, although Mr Trump had not specified that fact. “Because we believe in protecting not only the concept of law and order, but also the brave men and women who introduce law and order.”
However, if law and order mean a commitment to equal security and justice, not even Mr Trump’s own staff seem certain that his supporters will hold on to it in the final days of his presidency.
And so the Law and Order Presidency ends as follows: Hundreds of National Guardsmen, posted behind a seven-foot-high barbed wire fence, protecting the Capitol not from the people Mr. Trump demonized during his presidency, but from those who which he didn’t do.
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