Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Public Safety First

 Josh Marshall points out that a rise in crime rates - whatever the reason - will lead to more people like Trump getting elected. It doesn't matter WHY crime rates are rising (in fact, given Fox News, it won't even matter IF crime rates are rising), if they are rising people will look to authoritarian style leaders.  Same goes for "open borders."

Any criminal justice reform has to be centered around public safety first.

UPDATE: A little off topic, but also not. Martin Longman looks at how the GOP has to seize on a sort of veiled/not veiled racism, because they have lost their other organizing ideas. They have to give a permission structure that allows "old school" Republicans to avert their eyes from the current white supremacist ideology of the GOP.

Crime will be a major way to accomplish. The rhetoric on crime from Republicans in 2022 will be apocalyptic and it will be bluntly racist - if ever so slightly hedged to allow a segment of their coalition to ignore the obvious.

UPDATE 2: Maybe the NYC Mayor's race captures this.

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