Dems and media now argue mayors can do nothing to stop skyrocketing murders — it’s a lie
According to a growing lefty orthodoxy, nope. Not a chance. Crime is simply beyond the control of mayors — because, you know, guns or something. Plus root causes. Don’t forget them.
Of course, this is pernicious nonsense — ahistorical, counter-intuitive and patronizing in the extreme. You’d have to be a moron to believe it — but the line has utility to those who hate vigorous law enforcement; to failures who are desperate for excuses and to politicians who lack the guts to buck the orthodoxy.
Pick which category applies to Mayor de Blasio, but it remains that the fellow who canceled the specific policies that made New York safe a generation ago, sparking the city’s current gun-crime rampage, now says it’s not his problem. No, indeed; he blames Albany’s imbecilic 2019 criminal justice “reforms” — although this epiphany is quite recent.
The “reforms” are a big factor, of course, and they’ll be a major impediment to whomever is tasked with cleaning up de Blasio’s mess. So here’s hoping it’s Adams, because he’s the only one who even talks seriously about controlling gun crime. But no one should underestimate the degree of difficulty here.
Stripped to the basics, it’s a zeitgeist thing: Sometime between the anti-police unrest that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and the aftermath of last summer’s anti-police rioting, urban officials lost the will to defend their cities against armed street anarchy.
And, judging from recent balloting, so has a substantial chunk of the big-city electorate — although America’s urban-progressive ascendancy has not come cheaply.
Inarguably successful, perfectly reasonable — and mayorally controlled — policies designed to put police in close proximity to criminals have been abandoned on the specious grounds that cops, not criminals, are the real problem.
Unsurprisingly, and who can blame them, a whole lot of cops appears to have lost their appetites for the kinetic contact that often is necessary to keep streets safe
Cause. Effect. Escalation.
This is New York City seemingly on an express run to the blood-soaked ’80s. Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore and St. Louis, always violent and chaotic, are becoming killing fields. President Biden says the problem is guns and blue-state politicians nod like bobble-head dolls — because that’s the easy way out.
But Biden is wrong. The problem is not so much guns as it is guns on the street. Tightly focused programs meant to keep them off the streets — dare one say “stop-and-frisk?” — have been spectacularly successful in the past and they certainly could work again. What’s needed is willpower, perseverance, unwavering leadership, self-confidence, respect for the law-abiding and an ironclad refusal to accept finger-pointing, ideological deflection and excuse-mongering.
A tall order.
If Adams turns out to be the guy, good. He gets it — even if he will be swimming against a strong tide.
If not, not. Nice to have known you, New York.
But don’t think for a moment that the problem is beyond solution. It wasn’t in the ’80s, and it isn’t today — no matter what Bill de Blasio and his progressive pals tell you.
They lie.
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