Donald Trump has vowed to send federal officers to several American cities led by Democrats in what critics say is an attempt to play the law and order card to boost his bid for re-election.

The presidents threat came after a federal crackdown on anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, that involved unmarked cars and unidentified forces in camouflage.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump identified New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Oakland as places in need of federal agents, describing those cities mayors as liberal Democrats.

Were sending law enforcement, he said. We cant let this happen to the cities.

Singling out Chicago, where more than 63 people were shot, 12 fatally, over the weekend, Trump pivoted to an attack on his election rival, Joe Biden. And you add it up over the summer this is worse than Afghanistan, by far. This is worse than anything anyone has ever seen. All run by the same liberal Democrats. And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And were not going to let it go to hell.

Struggling against Biden in the opinion polls, Trump has leaned into a dark and divisive theme reminiscent of his fellow Republican Richard Nixon in 1968. I am your president of law and order, he declared in the White House Rose Garden on 1 June, shortly before park police and national guard troops fired teargas and chased peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo op outside a historic church.

Since then he has repeatedly and falsely accused Biden of planning to defund the police and effectively surrender cities and suburbs to violent criminals. The conservative Fox News network, meanwhile, has been giving emphasis to coverage of inner-city violence rather the coronavirus pandemic.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: He took longer than I thought he would to start emphasising law and order. But I bet he starts at the convention. Its going to be one of the key themes of the convention. These crazy liberals are causing problems again.

Such a strategy is certainly a candidate for explaining the fresh crackdown in major cities, Sabato added. Ill tell you what it really is, though. It is an unmistakeable hint of what a second Trump term will be like. Therell be no hesitation to do any of this.

The Trump administration sent federal officers into Portland after weeks of protests there over police brutality and racial injustice that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. Last week, videos showed unidentified federal personnel taking people off the street and driving them away in black minivans.

Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, defended the actions in a tweet on Sunday: Law and Order a cornerstone of American society is under siege in Portland.

On Monday the Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that the Department of Homeland Security was making plans to deploy about 150 agents in the city where police defending a statue clashed with demonstrators on Friday.

Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago and a Democrat, told the Associated Press: I have great concerns about that in particular, given the track record in the city of Portland. I have talked to the mayor of Portland [and] we dont need federal agents without any insignia taking people off the street and holding them, I think, unlawfully.

Political leaders in Oakland, California, were quick to condemn Trumps suggestion federal agents could deploy to their city. Oakland needs Covid relief not troops from our president, Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a statement. He should stop slandering diverse, progressive cities like Oakland in his racist dog whistles and divisive campaign tactics.

Stay away from Oakland, tweeted the Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee.

The issue has laid bare the binary choice for voters in November. Democrats, warning of a threat to civil liberties, called for Chad Wolf, acting secretary of Homeland Security, to quit. Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia said Wolf was overseeing authoritarian abuses that betray our bedrock principles and would horrify our nations Founders.

He added: Ordering the occupation of US cities, seeking the escalation of violence, and intentionally risking American lives over peaceful protests and graffiti is unfathomable and unacceptable. Secretary Wolf must resign immediately or be fired.

The House committee chairmen Jerry Nadler, Adam Smith and Bennie Thompson said in a joint statement: The Trump administration continues to weaponize federal law enforcement for its own agenda. Like we saw in Lafayette [Square], rather than supporting and protecting the American people, we are witnessing the oppression of peaceful protesters by our own government.

Not only do their action[s] undermine civil rights and sow fear and discord across the country, but in this case, they sully the reputation of members of our armed forces who were not involved.

And the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wrote on Twitter: Theyll have to arrest me first if they think theyre going to illegally lay their hands on my residents.

The sinister events in Portland have renewed fears about creeping authoritarianism from Trumps White House.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, has called for peaceful civil disobedience. Stormtrooper tactics have no place in a free society, he said. The apparent deployment of the military for domestic law enforcement violates the Posse Comitatus Act in the absence of a genuine insurrection, and the claim that such deployment is genuinely necessary to preserve order does not meet the laugh test.

The administration is violating the first amendment on a regular basis now, thereby endangering all our liberties.

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Trump's vow to send federal officers to US cities is election ploy, critics say - The Guardian