Democrats Ignore The Crime Spike At Their Own Peril
LAPPL News Watch
May 28, 2021
On
the anniversary of the death of George Floyd, dozens of gunshots rang
out in the middle of the day at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis,
forcing reporters and bystanders to duck and cover.
The symbolism was
unmistakable—the yearlong bout of protest and activism after Floyd’s
killing has coincided with a surge of urban crime that has made gunplay
dismayingly common.
Indeed, the intersection where Floyd was killed, now
a memorial blocked to vehicular traffic, has become a watchword for
mayhem, with frightened delivery drivers steering clear and periodic gun
battles.
The issue of public safety may be about to play its most
significant role in our politics since the mid-1990s, the beginning of a
decades-long decline in crime that steadily eroded its political
salience.
Donald Trump tried to make law and order a defining issue in
2020, but the rioting he so forcefully denounced was, in most places,
too transitory to become an overwhelming issue. He was also in the
awkward position of trying to run against disorder as an incumbent
rather than a challenger, and his chaotic governing style wasn’t a good
match for a message of orderliness.
But now, more than a year into a
serious crime wave, Democrats should beware—they are fooling themselves
if they think they won’t be blamed for a rise in violence in
Democratic-run cities that clearly, at some level, is a result of police
forces feeling beleaguered and overwhelmed.
Overall, murder increased
by more than 25 percent in the United States last year, the biggest jump
in 60 years. Murders jumped nearly 50 percent in New York City. Crime
increased 36 percent in Los Angeles. And the story is the same in city
after city.
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