IN CONSERVATIVES' MINDS, IT'S ALWAYS 1971

The attorney general is getting a lot of attention for this:

U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday that if some communities don’t begin showing more respect to law enforcement, then they could potentially not be protected by police officers.

The country’s top cop made the questionable remarks while giving a speech at the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in Policing.

“But I think today, American people have to focus on something else, which is the sacrifice and the service that is given by our law enforcement officers,” Barr said. “And they have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves ― and if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.”

That sounds familiar. It's a sentiment from the days of my youth, the late 1960s and early 1970s.



Barr was talking about that era, in fact:

The attorney general ... compared police to Vietnam-era soldiers returning home to face those opposed to the conflict.

“In the Vietnam era, our country learned a lesson. I remember that our brave troops who served in that conflict weren’t treated very well in many cases when they came home, and sometimes they bore the brunt of people who were opposed to the war,” he said. “The respect and gratitude owed to them was not given. And it took decades for the American people finally to realize that.”

Similarly, he suggested, Americans should stop protesting police officers “fighting an unrelenting, never-ending fight against criminal predators in our society.”

Boomer Republicans love to invoke the late 1960s and early 1970s. They love it because the fifty-year backlash to the much shorter era of protest and progress began at that time, with Nixon's election and reelection, with the governorship of future president Ronald Reagan, with hard-hat riots against anti-war protestors and Clint Eastwood revenge movies. They also love the era because they've never updated their stereotypes of the enemy. Black and Hispanic people are criminals. Feminists ("women's libbers") are hairy-legged man-haters. Men on the left are effeminate, smelly, sandal-wearing longhairs. Can it be that it was all so simple then?

The fantasy, then and now, was a complete withdrawal of "law and order" from the cities, or at least the "bad" neighborhoods, at which point all "those people" would kill one another off and leave the good people in a state of pleasant suburban peace, and allow the rich to turn the cities into high-end playgrounds. To a large extent, the rich got the latter wish, but it was as a result of the War on Crime -- which is a reminder that the police presence in higher-crime areas isn't on behalf of the residents, but on behalf of the elites who want the poor kept down. So Barr is bluffing -- the elites will always want have-nots policed. But it's a fantasy that's never lost its appeal to people like him.