How can law enforcement recover?

FOR A MAN who made millions by slapping his name on buildings and various products, President Trump has a special knack for tarnishing iconic American brands.

- MATT K. LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

FEDERAL agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere appear in gear labeled “Police,” eroding the trust in all levels of law enforcement.

(STEPHEN MATUREN Getty Images)

It goes like this: He grabs some broadly respected institution, re-brands it in his own image, and then hands it back smelling faintly of burnt hair and regret.

Trump's style of politics doesn’t just polarize Americans — it damages the reputations of major institutions. One casualty has been American Christianity.

As Axios recently noted, “Nearly three in 10 American adults today identify as religiously unaffiliated — a 33% jump since 2013, according to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.”

To be sure, Americans have been drifting away from organized religion for years. But as Christianity Today observed in 2023, Trump's first presidency “accelerated the decline,” particularly among moderate and left-leaning evangelicals — people who once thought church was about Jesus, turning the other cheek and helping widows, orphans and immigrants. You know, “woke” stuff.

Which brings me to my latest worry: that support for law enforcement may be headed down the same path.

“You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people, many of which turn out to be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” podcaster Joe Rogan recently lamented. “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, “Where's your papers?’ Is that what we've come to?”