Tim Alberta: “It’s a loaded phrase, one that politicians in both parties have invoked for decades — with great success — to project a certain virility to the electorate. It has recently taken on even harsher connotations in the context of Trump’s Twitter usage (10 times in just the last week) and the accompanying sentiments (threats of unleashing ‘vicious dogs’ on rioters, and promises of, ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts.’)
“But it has long carried a cautionary subtext: Don’t dare challenge the integrity of a justice system predicated on punishing wrongdoers, the harsher the better. Over time, this has meant fewer rehabilitative doors opened and more retributive cells slammed shut. It has meant refusing to acknowledge that anything is fundamentally amiss with the system itself; that disparities and discrimination are not the same thing, that isolated incidents of police misconduct are just that, no matter their regularity or similarities.”
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