I'm aware this term has been around for a while, but it has spiked in usage during the george floyd protests and now again with the arrest of the bodega clerk in New York after he stabbed someone trying to rob him, and was subsequently charged with murder. It's defined as "A stage of governmental dysfunction in which the state is anarchically hopeless at coping with large matters but ruthlessly tyrannical in the enforcement of small ones".

The term was coined by Samuel T. Francis (a noted racist and hate group member), originally relating to how violent gangs were not prosecuted while other, smaller crimes were, particularly against the people who would be most affected by gang violence.