Much of the recently concluded Republican National Convention looked like an advertorial written in consultation with the bosses of America’s police unions. That was, of course, entirely predictable given the chest-beating law-and-order posture the GOP has for a long time maintained. But, given the current context of mass protest against police violence and wider national reckoning with racial injustice, this year’s RNC proved even more jingoistic than usual.

The reason is partly ideological. Sections of the Republican base, while delusional, genuinely believe the country is perpetually on the verge of a coup that will see a coalition of antifa cells, BLM chapters, and woke college students violently seize power, with dull-as-ditchwater corporate Democrats acting as some sort of Leninist vanguard.

But the renewed right-wing emphasis on the supposed epidemics of lawlessness and disorder also has an obvious strategic dimension given the message Donald Trump clearly hopes will carry him to reelection in November. One passage from his recent RNC address is particularly emblematic: