Kimberly Strassel - Wall Street Journal
That
disconnect will haunt Democrats. Waukesha is one of those rare moments when the
consequences of an extreme ideology are brutally exposed to a nation. It’s a
big new midterm problem for Democrats, one that could prove as difficult to
overcome as rising inflation, Covid surges and parental backlash against
educational fads like critical race theory.
Crime is soaring nationally, after progressives
spent years pushing to water down bail rules, forgo prosecutions, release
prisoners and even defund the police. The governors, mayors and prosecutors who
indulged these demands uniformly have Ds behind their names.
The numbers had already been spiraling into a
political problem. The violence that the left egged on in the wake of George
Floyd’s murder has only grown. Nationally, homicides increased by 30% from 2019
to 2020. Chicago is likely to end 2021 with its highest murder rate in 25
years. Portland, Ore., home to routine violent riots, is on track to surpass
1,200 shootings this year, compared with 400 in 2019. Los Angeles recorded more
homicides in July than in any month for more than a decade.
Citizens have already responded at the ballot
box. On Nov. 2, Minneapolis voters rejected an initiative to abolish the police
force. Pro-policing candidates won mayoral races in New York City ( Eric Adams ),
Seattle ( Bruce Harrell ) and Buffalo, N.Y. (incumbent Byron Brown, elected as
a write-in candidate after losing the Democratic primary to a self-described
socialist). On New York’s Long Island, two Republican district-attorney
candidates beat Democrats in races that were referendums on state bail changes
that let repeat offenders go free.
Left-wing Democrats are struggling to adjust.
Longtime Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm conceded that
Waukesha suspect Darrell Brooks —charged with killing six and injuring at least
40 others—had been let out on “inappropriately low” bail. He promised an
internal review. The same Mr. Chisholm previously bragged that his office
reduced prosecutions, incarcerations, and cash bails.
In the weeks before Waukesha, Wisconsin Gov. Tony
Evers put 500 National Guard personnel on active duty in Kenosha to forestall
violence that might accompany the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. It was an
about-face from the August 2020 riots, when he let Kenosha burn. San Francisco
District Attorney Chesa Boudin ran in 2019 on a promise to end “mass
incarceration” and cash bail. He’s now tweeting his “outrage” over the
organized looting of his Union Square shops and vowing to bring “felony
charges.” According to an NBC Bay Area analysis, San Francisco officers made
131 arrests for felony domestic violence during the fourth quarter of 2020. Mr.
Boudin’s office dismissed 113, or 86% of them.
You can’t tweet away pro-crime policies that have
been years in the making. While attention of late has been on policing reform,
progressives have for a decade been more broadly demanding an end to what they
call a “racist” criminal-justice system. Their demands include the termination
of most effective policing tactics as well as an end to cash bail, mandatory
sentences, and prosecutions for most crimes.
They were notably successful at the state and
local level. Soon after taking office in 2014, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed
to curtail sharply the police department’s use of “stop and frisk” searches.
The same year, California voters effectively decriminalized shoplifting by
approving a progressive ballot measure that defined thefts under $950 as a
misdemeanor. Many left-leaning district attorneys engaged in what Mr. Chisholm
calls “prosecutor-driven justice reform.” The lockdowns and the reaction to the
Floyd killing unleashed a crime wave on a system that was primed for failure,
and those changes won’t easily be undone.
Good luck to Democratic elected officials caught
between public backlash over the growing breakdown of safety and progressives
who want yet more change. As AOC and her compatriots complained about
“unnecessary pretrial detention” in Waukesha’s wake, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of
Michigan sat down with Axios to defend her support of the 2020 Breathe Act,
which would end life sentences, kill the “three strikes” law, prohibit police
use of Tasers, and fully empty federal prisons within 10 years. The White House
felt compelled to explain Tuesday that President Biden “does not support
abolishing prisons.”
Data from the October WSJ/NBC poll found that
voters now trust Republicans over Democrats to handle crime by a 22-point
margin. Add voter discontent over inflation and Covid, then re-evaluate some of
those crucial 2022 swing state races. In Wisconsin a recent Marquette poll
found that 69% of registered voters believe crime is rising nationally. Only
19% of independents approve of Mr. Biden, and 23% would vote to re-elect Mr.
Evers. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is considered the GOP’s most vulnerable
incumbent and hasn’t decided if he’s running. Democrats are making that
decision easier.
The horrific crime in Waukesha stemmed from
policy failures that demand political accountability. That begins and ends with
Democratic policies.
No comments:
Post a Comment