By Steve Pomper
The radical left has done a belly flop into political quicksand by championing policies despised by most Americans. They tried to hedge their bets with H1, the so-called, For the People Act of 2021 (more like, For the Democrats Act), but Americans are getting increasingly wise to their repeated power grift.
The one thing conservatives have on their side is the lefts’ propensity for overreach. Take defunding the police, which normal people know is insane. Why do they keep doing stuff like this? Because they can’t help themselves; they’re power-hungry even if what they do will end up reducing their power. Unfortunately, sometimes their overreaches are successful. Just look at the blue state Covid lockdowns.
After the miasma of deception that was the 2020 elections, the left needs to get as much of its harmful agenda done as possible while it’s possible—while they hold power. To complete any part of their plan, they must marginalize the police by demonizing them. Using the police as a target has become a go-to Democrat strategy, now. And gaslighting it’s the GOP defunding the police, is another desperate tactic.
People have been and are being killed directly because of leftist Democrat politicians’ inane public safety policies. Anyone see Chicago’s shooting stats for the 4th of July weekend, which included a one-month-old baby, a nine-year-old girl, and two cops. This, as their so-called mayor cries about misogyny and racism against her? The Roman Emperor Nero couldn’t fiddle any better than she can. As History.com documents, “Not only did Nero play music while his people suffered, but he was an ineffectual leader in a time of crisis.”
One way to know that the left doesn’t want to solve problems but only to distract while grabbing more power, is to do even a cursory search for the logic in their agenda. They say cops are hunting and killing young, often unarmed, black men in the streets. According to a piece at westernjournal.com, a recent survey showed, “44% of Liberals Think Cops Killed Around or Over 1,000 Unarmed Black Men in 2019….” It was between nine and 25, depending on how you define “unarmed.” Alarmist radicals and gaslighting state media are responsible for this, folks.
Easily researchable government statistics don’t support this “genocide.” Another is trying to find logic in the leftists’ demand every law enforcement officer in every law enforcement agency needs to “reform” because they don’t like what a few cops did in a few incidents in a few cities.
One thing cop-hating politicians have done to diminish cops is toss “broken windows” policing, well… out the window. This happens when political leaders need to create problems they can then promise to fix—but won’t—ever. They need social discord, or their movements die. There can be no effective solutions. There is no fundraising or political power in solutions, only in broken promises, not broken windows.
So, you have things like this leftist-criticized, effective crime reduction strategy called “broken windows” policing? Most people who’ve heard about it know it through New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani who successfully used this approach. An approach that was credited with a massive crime reduction in the 1990s.
The broken windows approach means police vigorously enforce low-level crimes (i.e., vandalism, subway turnstile jumping) to discourage and prevent the more serious crimes. Makes sense, right? But logic has nothing to do with the leftist (sub)version of police work these days. The Left is not interested in what works, only in what they can say will work—eventually.
Back in the 90s, my department employed a similar broken windows effort to combat gangbangers dealing crack. There was a group that conducted a study of California gangsters who’d returned from Seattle to L.A. When asked why, they said they got tired of a bunch of officers showing up every time they tried to set up to deal dope. Getting pinched for jaywalking, littering, or loitering gets old, I guess.
The radical leftist officeholders actively prevent cops from enforce “minor” crimes (broken windows). Look at San Francisco police not allowed to enforce shoplifting laws. Walgreens has shuttered all of its city locations and city Target stores are now closing at 6 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. to stem the crime sprees occurring in their stores with no police intervention.
Ostensibly, the Left argues it wants officers to have more time to focus on more “serious crimes.” But they are ignoring something. Hardcore career criminals are not like high-paid Wall Street-types who think low-paying jobs like serving burgers are beneath them.
While low-level criminals tend to commit minor crimes, high-level criminals also commit minor crimes. In New York City, for example, does anyone think gang members who commit carjackings and drive-by shootings would think jumping a subway turnstile is beneath them? If officers can apprehend and jail these high-level criminals for committing minor crimes or even infractions, they can prevent more serious crimes.
This doesn’t take a Ph.D. from MIT to figure it out, folks. It’s not like petty and hardcore criminals get union cards that only allow them to commit minor or major crimes depending on their certifications. Many criminals move in and out of committing minor and major crimes. And, to reiterate, police, operating under broken windows, will arrest more criminals committing any kind of crimes or for having arrest warrants, which lowers the overall crime rate.
Police conducting proactive, broken windows-type emphasis patrolling also increases public safety and the people’s quality of life. This is so obviously true, but it just doesn’t fit the radical left’s narrative or its anti-police goals.