Trump praises police brutality. Police audience cheers.

In a country where public trust in the police is disintegrating by the day – possibly related to all the highway robbery, casual slaughter of pets, needless militarization, SWAT-style drug raids (often at the wrong address), unarmed Blacks (and others) harassed and murdered in droves, and on and on – President Trump saw his recent speech to an audience of uniformed officers as an opportunity to remind them of their oath to uphold the law and protect their commun—

Sorry, can’t get through that with a straight face. He joked about police brutality and encouraged them to ramp it up. And the cops applauded him.

Police should treat the people they arrest violently, President Donald Trump said Friday afternoon, encouraging cops to get “rough” when they toss people into a police vehicle.

Trump offered the praise for flagrant retributive violence by uniformed law enforcers during a wide-ranging speech to cops in Brentwood, New York. Officers present laughed and applauded in response.

“When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddywagon, you just see ’em thrown in rough. I said please don’t be too nice,” the president said, to a murmur of chuckles.

“Like when you guys put somebody into the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put your hand, like, don’t hit their head, and they just killed somebody, don’t hit their head,” he went on. “I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

The police laughter grew louder, giving way to applause and cheers.

I don’t know which is worse: that the sitting president would make a joke of law enforcement officers abusing the public they serve, or those officers treating it as an applause line.

Wait, I do know which is worse. Trump’s just being his usual terrible self. Those cops are the ones who are expected to uphold the laws and civil liberties of the people they interact with every day. That near-standing ovation they just gave Trump makes it clear just how seriously they take those duties. They should all be sanctioned, if not fired – or at the very least, kicked back into remedial training. But as the universe insists on reminding me, we don’t live in a just world.