NATION NOW

Trump leads the way to loathsome new lows: Christian Schneider

He's given allies like Sheriff David Clarke permission to be caustic, fact-free and loutish.

Christian Schneider
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke

With barely a nudge, the Republican Party has recently transformed from a party that espoused personal control to one whose members can't control themselves. Where the language of individual responsibility once served a guidepost, rhetorical irresponsibility is now the standard.

It's no secret how this happened. Politicians often need permission to talk a certain way — in the GOP's more conservative years, Paul Ryan gave Republicans permission to talk about reforming Social Security and Medicare without committing political suicide. After former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley condemned her state's connection to the Confederate flag, the dam burst and other Republicans followed.

Donald Trump has now given conservatives permission to engage in a new type of verbal pugilism formerly relegated to fringe candidates in local school board races. Trump's caustic, fact-free tirades have reshaped the Republican Party from a group of boring, wooden white men to the opposite extreme, where explosive rhetoric is becoming the norm.

This accounts for Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.'s newfound celebrity. Milwaukee residents know that Clarke always has been confrontational, but his Trump-era transformation into a loathsome sub-cognitive has been swift and profitable. (Clarke technically remains a Democrat, but is a staunch Trump supporter who governs as a Republican.)

Last week, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett criticized Clarke for being absent from the city while seeking nationwide media attention. Predictably, Clarke launched a brutal and distasteful attack on Barrett, taunting him for being bludgeoned with a tire iron while protecting a 1-year-old and her grandmother near State Fair Park in 2009.

“The last time Tom Barrett showed up at a crime scene he got his ass kicked by a drunk, tire-iron-wielding man who beat him within inches of his life," Clarke said. "The milquetoast mayor trying to play cop foolishly thought he could simply talk the man who beat him senseless into backing down. Bet he won't try that again!"

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It takes a special kind of moral coward to hide behind a keyboard while criticizing a 55-year-old man for protecting a child and grandparent from an attack. But it's the type of odiousness that has catapulted Clarke into his cowboy hat-wearing "America's Sheriff" persona while the City of Milwaukee has seen homicides skyrocket over the past two years.

The question is not whether Clarke is playing the role of buffoonish lout to gain fame; at one point, he was a serious person with serious ideas. He is right about the role that the breakdown of the black family has played in exacerbating the inner city's chronic problems, and his crusade to allow citizens to arm themselves is laudable.

But the more important question is whether people keep buying his latest act. And to date, they are.

In Milwaukee County, Clarke seems to have formed a unique coalition of middle-class suburban whites and poor blacks in the inner city. The predominantly white outer ring of the county tends to be more conservative, and likes Clarke's tough-on-crime persona. And African-Americans in the poorest areas of the city see someone who looks like them who is promising them a life raft.

It is this novel alliance of voters that has swept Clarke back into office election after election. In a number of City of Milwaukee wards where Donald Trump tallied in the single digits, Clarke routinely pulls between 35% and 45% of the vote. His intemperate remarks break through the noise and show that unlike Barrett, he's not just another caretaker politician. (And for his alt-right fringe supporters, he serves the useful purpose of protecting them from charges that they're racist.)

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It is evident that people are so desperate for change, they are willing to accept anyone who will shake up the status quo. Unfortunately for Clarke, however, the status quo also involves daily tasks such as keeping prisoners alive in his county jail.

In the past year, four inmates have died in Clarke's jail, including a man whom other inmates claim was begging for water before he died of dehydration. When a pregnant woman was put behind bars last July, she gave birth to her baby in her cell without any of the guards noticing. Shadé Swayzer says her baby was born alive, cried profusely, and breast fed before it died. (The company responsible for medical care at the jail contends the child was stillborn.)

When Clarke decides to mock a man for being beaten "within inches of his life," note that those are more inches of life granted a baby who died in his jail cell. Maybe someday he'll actually find the person responsible for the deaths under his watch — as long as the perpetrator is hiding behind a Fox News camera.

Christian Schneider is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this piece was first published. Follow him on Twitter @Schneider_CM.

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