Many Americans are concerned about their safety, especially in the three years since liberal policies inspired such tumult.
Last week, however, showed actual progress.
On Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who once sought nearly $80 million in cuts to the city”s beleaguered police department, was abruptly booted office.
In the time between her execrable efforts to “defund the police” and her Feb. 28 primary defeat, Chicago saw homicides hit a quarter-century high.
Despite what some media propagandists espouses, the Windy City is in decline, and Lightfoot is atop the list of those most culpable.
Paul Vallas, who ran as a moderate Democrat with an anti-crime platform, now enters an April mayoral runoff against anti-police radical Brandon Johnson, a candidate somehow left of Lightfoot.
“Voters want a mayor who”s going to get the city back on track and who”s going to address its most pressing issues, and obviously, the issue of public safety is front and center,” Valles explained.
Then on Thursday, President Joe Biden told U.S. Senate Democrats he will not veto Republican legislation that repeals a Washington D.C. crime bill. The left is apoplectic about this common sense move.
The dangerous D.C. law would end most mandatory sentencing, reduce penalties for violent offenses, and expand the requirement for jury trials in cases of misdemeanor. It”s a poorly-timed disaster.
The nation”s capital &mdash with a population of roughly 700,000 &mdash recently witnessed more than 200 homicides in back-to-back years for the first time in two decades. Already this year, D.C. homicides are up nearly 40% from this point in 2022. Apparently, the local congresswoman and Black Lives Matter-loving City Council are fine with more dead residents, particularly black men.
Are we finally seeing a serious push back against the totalitarian left and assorted libertines?
In 2021, anti-police politicians in New York City and Seattle were defeated at the ballot box. In December of that year, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, once a defund advocate, shocked many by claiming, “It is time for the reign of criminals to end&hellipAnd it comes to an end when are we more aggressive with law enforcement and less tolerant of all the bulls**t that has destroyed our city.”
Even Lightfoot at some point declared, “We cannot continue to endure the level of violence that we are now experiencing.”
Last summer, San Francisco”s ardent pro-criminal district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled by some of the most progressive voters in America.
As more Americans endure the pernicious consequences of Democrat policies, elected officials should change course.
Maybe last week we witnessed Biden of a generation ago.
The vast majority of Americans support their police and want aggressive crack downs on crime.
They abhor the anti-American rhetoric of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.
“The Democrats are well aware that public safety is a huge vulnerability for them,” journalist Matthew Continetti said on Friday”s Commentary Magazine podcast.
Due to leftist prosecutors, woke city councils and abhorrent activists, the battle against anti-police actors is not complete. Thanks to many deep blue cities, police recruitment is struggling, attrition is rising, and many cops and are afraid to do their jobs.
But when we finally restore public safety to its proper perch, it will likely be because voters register their disdain with certain elected officials. Last week was a good start.
Ari Kaufman is a correspondent for several U.S. newspapers and magazines from Minnesota and Ohio to Tennessee and Virginia. He taught school and served as a military historian before beginning his journalism career in 2006. The author of three books, he is also a frequent guest on radio programs and contributes to Israel National News and The Lid.
