Connecting the Dots

Ruy Teixeira connects the dots between the San Francisco district attorney’s recall, the track records of other progressive states attorneys, and the Democrats’ situation going into the midterms:

When voters in San Francisco—San Francisco!—throw a progressive Democrat out of office for failing to provide public safety, you know Democrats have an urgent need to assure voters that they are in fact determined to crack down on crime and to dissociate the party from approaches that fail to do so.

This is a wave that has been building for some time. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the nationwide movement sparked by it, the climate for police reform was highly favorable. But Democrats blew the opportunity by allowing the party to be associated with unpopular movement slogans like “defund the police” that did not appear to take public safety concerns very seriously.

At the same time, Democrats became associated with a wave of progressive public prosecutors who seemed quite hesitant about keeping criminals off the street, even as a spike in violent crimes like murders and carjacking sweeps the nation. This was twinned to a climate of tolerance and non-prosecution for lesser crimes that degraded the quality of life in many cities under Democratic control. San Francisco became practically a poster child for the latter problem under Chesa Boudin’s “leadership”.

and

The answer seems clear to me. It’s time for Democrats to adopt former UK prime minister Tony Blair’s felicitous slogan: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”. Conservative outlets like Fox News may exaggerate but voters really do want law and order—done fairly and humanely, but law and order just the same. Democrats still seem reluctant to highlight their commitment to cracking down on crime and criminals because that is something that, well, Fox News would say.

This has got to stop. Weakness on crime damages the Democrats’ brand and especially hurts some of their most vulnerable constituents.

concluding:

Biden (or some other leading Democrat) should say something like this, as recommended by Charlie Sykes at The Bulwark:

We must continue the fight for social justice, but it should not come at the price of public safety. In some of our biggest cities we have folks who think that we shouldn’t put criminals in jail or downplay the dangers of violent crime. They are wrong. We have to protect our families and our neighborhoods.

And then name some names. I think you know who I have in mind. It’s time for the Democrats’ Chesa Boudin Moment!

Okay, I’ll bite. What are “the causes of crime”? The U. S. is among the highest-spending countries in the world on education and healthcare (whether counting per capita, per pupil, or as a percent of GDP) so it’s not that we’re not spending enough. I think it can be argued that we’re not getting value for the money we’re spending but that’s a much tougher nut to crack than spending more. I know Kevin Drum thinks that lead paint is a contributing factor. I think it’s multi-factorial including social issues that it’s taboo to mention. I also think that it is a fact that crime pays and for many is a safe and easy way to get things you can’t get by doing honest work.