Say their names: Brian Sicknick. Jeffrey Smith. Howard Liebengood.

All three police officers died after defending the Capitol from assault on Jan. 6, 2021. Another 150 officers were injured by attackers who wielded baseball bats, pepper spray and brass knuckles.

But the attackers are free now, pardoned by President Donald Trump on the first day of his new term. That’s terrible news for the rule of law in America. But it could be an ace in the hole for Democrats, if they play their cards right.

For a half-century, Republicans have tarred them as soft on crime. The GOP claims it is the party of law and order that “backs the blue.” By contrast, Republicans say, Democrats coddle criminals and disparage police.

But with the pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters, Democrats can reverse that narrative. They can pin the anti-police label on the GOP, which has thrown the Capitol’s heroic guardians under the bus. And Democrats can become the tough-on-crime party, losing the weak-kneed reputation that has haunted them since 1968.

That was the first year that “crime and lawlessness” became the most important domestic issue to American voters, a Gallup poll found. Those concerns rose even further that April, when the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. triggered riots across the country.

In Washington, burning and looting came within two blocks of the White House. Fourteen thousand Army troops were called to assist police in protecting the nation’s capital. Later that month, protesters occupied five buildings at Columbia University. And that August, demonstrators converged upon the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where police — some disguised as “hippies”— responded with tear gas, billy clubs and Mace. As the TV cameras rolled, the protesters chanted that “the whole world is watching.” But when Gallup surveyed Americans, it found that the great majority supported the police instead of the protesters.

And Republican strategists were watching, too. Seizing upon the mayhem in Chicago, GOP presidential candidate Richard Nixon made “law and order” a centerpiece of his campaign. “How can a party that can’t keep order in its own backyard hope to keep order in our 50 states?” asked a Nixon television commercial. Other Nixon advertisements showed images of urban riots, street crime and student protesters alongside pictures of rifles, switchblades and hypodermic needles. The message was clear: If you fear crime, and you support police, vote Republican.

Nixon went on to victory, and law and order has been a mainstay of GOP appeals ever since. Most notoriously, George H.W. Bush used a photo of Willie Horton — who raped a woman while on furlough for another crime — to defeat Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential contest.

Four years later, “new Democrat” Bill Clinton did everything he could to shed his party’s soft-on-crime label. He flew back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of a mentally unstable prisoner. And after winning the White House, he signed a crime bill to hire more police officers, expand prisons and mandate life sentences for violent felons with three convictions.

But Americans continued to identify the GOP as the stronger party on crime and Democrats as the weaker one. Republicans wore T-shirts pledging support for local law enforcement. Democrats were more likely to highlight police brutality, noting — correctly — that it bore disproportionately upon racial minorities.

Some self-described progressives went even further, indicting all police for the sins of the few. Especially after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, “defund the police” became a progressive mantra. Police weren’t the solution to the problem; they were the problem, visiting violence on minority communities.

Never mind that most minority voters want more police, not fewer. In Philadelphia, where I live, a 2022 survey found that about two-thirds of Black and Latino citizens thought the city didn’t have enough police officers, while white people were more than twice as likely as Black citizens to say there were too many police.

No wonder increasing numbers of Black and Latino voters cast their ballots for Trump, who cast himself as the law-and-order candidate. The Jan. 6 pardons provide an opportunity for the Democrats to win them back, along with anyone else who supports the police.

Just as Nixon hyped photographs of urban unrest, Democrats should flood the zone with video of Jan. 6 rioters attacking police officers. And they should remind voters that the Fraternal Order of Police — which endorsed Trump for president three times— condemned him for pardoning the rioters.

“Crimes against law enforcement are not just attacks on individuals or public safety — they are attacks on society and undermine the rule of law,” the FOP declared in a joint statement with another police union.

That’s exactly right. Everyone in America should know the names of the brave officers who gave their lives in defense of our society on Jan. 6, 2021. By pardoning their attackers, Trump and his Republican enablers have forsaken the mantle of law and order. The only question is whether the Democrats can muster the will and the courage to seize it.

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Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.

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