Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both wrong about rioting. Neither can do much about it.

Donald Trump is trying, with some success, to redefine the presidential race as being about law and order.

Joe Biden, in response, has blamed Trump for the rioting and looting occurring in some American cities.

However, despite the fireworks in the presidential race, law and order is almost exclusively a local issue. Who is president has, at best, an indirect and marginal influence on safety in the streets. Who is mayor and on the city council are the political choices that matter.

Trump is not to blame for rioting

Biden blaming Trump for the rioting and looting is grossly irresponsible, and significantly undermines his claim to be the adult in the race and a force for unity.

According to Biden, Trump is responsible because of his divisive rhetoric, failure to adequately condemn right-wing militias and insufficient recognition of racial injustices in the criminal justice system.

Saying that Trump is to blame is just a step away from saying that the rioting and looting are justified. Nothing Trump says or does justifies, explains or is responsible for rioting and looting. Period.

Social justice is losing: Rioting is beginning to turn people off to BLM and protests while Biden has no solution

In a democratic society, the way to channel passionate opposition to a political figure to try to defeat him or her in the next election. Not to burn down a local police precinct station or neighborhood store.

Neither is Black Lives Matter

Nor, as some on the right maintain, is the Black Lives Matter movement responsible for the rioting and looting that is occurring.

I think the movement is seriously misguided and wrong in its critique and proposed solutions. But its chosen path to effectuate change is mass peaceful protests, something rooted in American tradition and protected in law.

There is a revived anarchist movement in the country as well. And there are people who just like to destroy and steal things. These miscreants are using the cover of BLM’s popularity and anti-police creed to engage in criminal activity in the street. The BLM movement is actually being exploited.

Scott Jennings: From riots to the filibuster, liberal America won't accept political opposition

But because the miscreants are claiming to operate under the cover of BLM, local liberal public officials have been frozen in response.

The only people responsible, or to be blamed, for the rioting and looting are those who are doing the rioting and looting. Period.

Local inaction doesn't change duties

And those responsible for keeping them from disrupting and destroying public order are local elected officials. The police need to be authorized to use whatever legal force is necessary to contain and prevent rioting and looting. And they need to know that local elected officials will stand up for them if they do.

Here, the anti-police creed of BLM is a factor. It makes it politically difficult for liberal local officials to unleash the police to put an end to the rioting and looting.

But that doesn’t make local law and order a federal issue, as the Trump campaign is trying to transform it.

Trump can't stop defunding police

In his speech accepting the vice presidential nomination, Mike Pence said that if Trump is reelected, the police in this country wouldn’t be defunded. That’s vapid nonsense.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, cities spend around $100 billion a year on their police departments. The two largest federal grant programs for local law enforcement — the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and Byrne Justice Assistance Grant programs — total less than $1 billion.

How much cities spend on their police departments from local revenues is a purely local decision. The president has nothing to say about it.

Lessons for Kenosha and elsewhere: What we can do to keep protests peaceful

Trump has mooted somehow tying other federal funding for cities to their police department budgets. But that would be a fraught, and arguably unconstitutional, endeavor.

It certainly shows a lack of fealty to the principles of federalism — accepting state and local governments as independent, sovereign enterprises — that once upon a time demarked one of the differences between Republicans and Democrats.

A president can influence public sentiment about such matters. And I think Trump standing up for the police during this BLM moment has been a net positive.

But law and order, at least at the city street level, isn’t within the presidential portfolio. This election should be about the things for which the president has direct responsibility and authority.

Robert Robb is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, where this column originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @RJRobb

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Donald Trump, Joe BIden are both wrong about rioting and looting