> In no other occupation, that I can think of, can so many rules and directives be flouted without losing ones job, as is the case with modern police.
That isn't really true. Have you read half the corporate policies published by large companies? Neither have most of their employees. Nobody cares and they're not enforced until Something Bad happens, at which point it's time to open the book for the first time to see which rule the designated scapegoat can be found to have broken.
The problem with the police is that the institutional Something Bad doesn't align with the actually bad things that happen when they break the rules. The institutional Something Bad is bad press.
The actual bad thing is sending an innocent person to prison while a guilty one stays free to continue committing robberies and murders. Or the same sort of "bring me the man, I'll find you the crime" except used by the police against dissidents and anti-authoritarians instead of the people presiding over some corporate incompetence.
But when that doesn't result in bad press, nobody gets punished and then it keeps happening.
This is why it's important to have a media willing to hold any administration's feet to the fire. Ironically, getting the election results many of the people who care about this wanted is having the opposite effect, as now the pressure is off to actually do anything about the problem.
Complaining about it when the other guy is in is rhetorically advantageous; actually doing something about it when you're in costs political capital. So now we get to see what they do. But based on the existing media rhetoric, the implication seems to be more police state rather than less.
Of course, the media is not just The Media, it's also this. So write your Congress critters.