Donald Trump, Wyatt Earp, and Police Brutality

I have a piece today in The Hill explaining why President Trump’s idealization of Wyatt Earp – in his speech accepting the Republican nomination – is consistent with his general tolerance (to put it generously) of police brutality.

Here is the gist:

In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, President Trump praised the pioneers who “picked up their Bibles, packed up their belongings, climbed into covered wagons and set out West for the next adventure.” “Legends were born,” he said, naming “Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davey Crockett, and Buffalo Bill.” Perhaps it was only a coincidence that Trump identified four figures whose over-hyped reputations far exceed their actual accomplishments and are known today mostly from old movies and television shows. For Wyatt Earp, however, there is also a story of police brutality. Although seldom told for almost 140 years, it may still reveal a great deal about Trump’s choice of heroes.

You can read the entire piece here.

Comments

[anon]

As usual, the always-predictable Lubet, in his zeal to smear Trump, misses the point.

Absurdly engaging in presentism that would make almost any scholar reject his piece outright, Lubet ignores the most salient part of the story he spins. Lubet states:

"There is no justification today for ... shooting at the first whiff of trouble."

It seems Lubet wrote, but did not understand, the findings he describes. As part of the highly political proceeding Lubet cites as something akin to the received word, the finding was the "defendant" honestly believed that his life was in danger when he fired.

It wasn't a "whiff" of trouble … That statement is absurd. Read the facts, please.

Is there any limit to the affinity of leftists with thieves and murders, who are committed to wanton acts of violence in the streets?

[PaulB]

Not relevant to this discussion, but Wyatt Earp is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Colma, just outside San Francisco.

[A non]

What's wrong with calling Steve out on the incredibility of Trump's actually knowing the finer details of the Earp story (or about Trump's having even written the speech in the first place) and his disingenuously attributing the possibility of Trump's support for Earp thereupon nonetheless?

[Thomas Sullivan]

How was Annie Oakley "over-hyped?" Here life story is actually quite incredible.

[anon]

Steve is getting a bit overzealous in deleting comments.

[anon]

FWIW, a comment that Steve's characterization of Annie Oakley as "overhyped" was not reasonable and untrue - and of a piece with recent efforts to undermine anything Trump praises - is within the bounds of fair comment.

[Garrel Pottinger]

It seems to me, it’s important to note that, in common with the present situation, a main cause of the trouble at the O.K. Corral was the presence of too damned many guns! Cops, then and now, are scared, and, understandably, tend to react to anything that resembles reaching for one by blazing away.

Part of what we need to do is get rid of the guns. That’s a wicked hard problem, but it needs to be faced. And, of course, what happened in Tombstone makes it clear that the cure and the disease are tangled together – as you point out, the Earps were trying to enforce a gun control measure. Hitting somebody with a gun butt is brutal, but shooting them is worse.

[anon]

Garrel

One meme from the "Wild West" was that police forces were not the norm, at least in the beginning. THis may have been more true or less true: certainly, less true in "cities" and more true in the very rural areas.

When the citizenry took the law into their own hands, things got quite brutal. A theme of many of the legends that Steve Lubet disparages was that injustices occurred: the wrong man was accused and hanged.

The "lawman" was a figure of respect because he was trying to impose some law and order in the community. This was seen as a vast improvement.

What many leftists don't seem to comprehend is that there are some very violent, vicious and uncontrollable folks, who hurt others for no good reason. When police deal with such individuals, on a daily basis, a dysfunctional attitude can develop that leads to excesses.

Lubet states there was a "whiff" of trouble. That statement proves the point.

He just doesn't get it. ANd that is the problem with the left these days.

IF the media, every night, focused on the crimes done to innocent children, perhaps these ivory tower, isolated "thinkers" would think about the situation more holistically.

[Ediberto Roman]

Wonderfully written essay. Truly enjoyed it!