On Tuesday, writing for The New York Times, columnist Peter Baker outlined how President Donald Trump's efforts to use the language of "law and order" and invoke the fear of crime parallels the third-party campaign of segregationist Gov. George Wallace in 1968 — and explained how historians have analyzed his new election strategy.
"President Trump said last month that he had 'learned a lot from Richard Nixon,' and many interpreted his hard-line response to the street protests of recent days as a homage of sorts to the 1968 campaign," wrote Baker. "The president’s Twitter feed has been filled with phrases famous from the Nixon lexicon like 'LAW & ORDER' and even 'SILENT MAJORITY.' But if anything, Mr. Trump seems to be occupying the political lane held that year by George Wallace, the segregationist former governor of Alabama who ran as a third-party candidate to the right of Nixon. While he does not share Wallace’s extreme positions, Mr. Trump is running hard on a combative pro-police, anti-protester platform, appealing to Americans turned off by unrest in the streets."
"From the safety of his fortified White House, Mr. Trump has recirculated a Twitter post by a commentator saying it 'sickens me' to suggest that George Floyd, the black man whose death under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis two weeks ago touched off protests around the world, be considered a martyr," wrote Baker. "And on Tuesday, he advanced a conspiracy theory aired by a broadcaster who has done freelance work for a Russian propaganda unit that implied with no basis in fact that a police assault on an unarmed protester in Buffalo was somehow a 'set up.'"
Historians broadly agree that Trump's attempts to invoke "law and order" rhetoric have some key differences between the circumstances under which Nixon did so.
“Law and order was the No. 1 domestic issue during the campaign, even overtaking Vietnam in most polls by November,” said Texas A&M University historian Luke A. Nichter. “A candidate for county dogcatcher could not run in 1968 without having a position. Even Hubert Humphrey was talking about law and order by the end of the campaign.”
“Comparing Nixon to Trump does a disservice to Nixon, who beyond his own demons, was often a brilliant political strategist,” said George Wallace documentarian Paul Stekler. “And in 1968, having Wallace in the race allowed him to triangulate — but it was a narrow path given how close the election ultimately was.”
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