I know what you're thinking. Did he win six electoral votes or only five?
Hey, everybody! Donald Trump has a plan to end crime, and like most of his "plans," it sounds exactly like it was thought up by a 14-year-old boy who watches too much TV: Trump's going to unleash all the toughest cops and let them bring law and order back to the streets. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly Monday, Trump explained that getting crime under control is simply a matter of letting the good guys do their job, even if it involves getting a little rough if they have to, because that's how you win. Did you know we don't win anymore? Relevant part of video starts around four minutes in:
So how exactly do we bring crime to an immediate halt, in the name of the law? It all comes down to this one cop in Chicago:
O'Reilly: So, specifically, specifically. How do you do it? How do you do it?
Trump: I know police in Chicago. If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done.
O'Reilly: How? How?
Trump: You have unbelievable -- how? By being very much tougher than they are right now. They're right now not tough. I mean, I could tell you this very long and quite boring story but when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, "How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge," to a specific person, "Do you think you could stop it?" He said, "Mr. Trump, I'd be able to stop it in one week." And I believed him 100 percent.
O'Reilly: How? Did he tell you how he'd be able to stop it?
Trump: No, he just wants to use tough -- he wants to use tough police tactics, which is OK. You have people being killed.
O'Reilly: But you have to have a warrant to arrest people. You can’t beat them up. You have to have a warrant to arrest them --
Trump: All I know is this: I went to to a top police officer in Chicago, who is not the police chief [...] he was a rough, tough guy, they respected him greatly, I said "How do you think you do it?" He said, "Mr. Trump, withinone week we could stop much of this horror show that's going on.
O'Reilly: But he didn't tell you exactly, precisely how, because that's what I --
Trump: No, and I didn't ask him, because I'm not the mayor of Chicago. But I tell you what, I sent his name in and I said, "You probably should hire this guy, because you know the expression 'you have nothing to lose?' Look at what's going on in Chicago it's horrible.
Trump then apparently forgot whether he was talking about Chicago or Syria, or maybe he didn't, because the solution is the same in either place: "It's a little bit like, we could win the war a lot more quickly if we'd let our generals do the job properly." Thankfully, Trump stopped short of insisting we need to start waterboarding Chicagoans (add your own joke about any given Chicago sportsball team here).
That one guy must really be something, and we sure are glad Trump sent his name in. Maybe some bright journalist can identify him and learn his plan for bringing peace to the Mean Streets of Chicago. He shouldn't be too hard to find -- just ask Thomas Friedman's cab driver.
O'Reilly, unable to find out what that one guy in Chicago knows about stopping crime in a week, moved on to the supposed war on cops, who are feeling all emasculated and unable to act, because, as Trump said, "People are being coddled. People are being coddled." Trump would end all the coddling and be a "cheerleader for police":
O'Reilly: All right. So your tone is pro-police.
Trump: You have to give them back their spirit.
O'Reilly: How do you stop the bad guys from attacking them?
Trump: By giving them back your spirit and by allowing them to go and counterattack. I mean it's ridiculous what's happening, they're not respecting the police anymore, and the police are afraid to do anything [...] they don't wanna lose their job.
That's what a cheerleader does. Build spirit. And maybe Purity of Essence, too.
So Trump, once he hears back from the guy in Chicago, or the mayor does at least, is going to let cops be as tough as they need to be. We'd suggest he survey all the police chiefs who've ever told a cop to turn in his badge because he bent the rules one time too many. Then all they need is a montage of the cops arming up (preferably to a soundtrack of a rock anthem or the cadence of a single snare drum) and being set loose on the streets, because crime is a disease and the One Tough Cop is the cure. As the expert criminologists at TV Tropes know,
He's a loose cannon, but DAMMIT he's the best we have!
Sure, our society may be built upon rules and procedures, but they make for bad television. Sometimes you have to bend the rules, rough up the suspects, moon your supervisors and shred the Constitution to get stuff done.
There's just one thing Trump seems to have overlooked: the inevitable sad fate of the tough cop's partner, a family man who only had two weeks until retirement and has never had to draw his gun before. That guy's toast. Oh, as is your Constitutional right to not get your ass beat by a cop having a real bad day. But hey, the Constitution's for pussies, right? What, ain't you got no balls? Trump has the best balls, will beat up all the bad guys or maybe the guys who shouldn't have been in the park not-playing-checkers. Have they also considered not being black? That could help too. We are just guessing.
Donald Trump's Plan To End Crime: Unleash Dirty Harry, McBain, More-Racist Mel Gibson
The soap is hard as a stone, but don't worry about it.
How do we do it? Easy, peasy. Just start issuing these: