Riots, Arson, Policing and the Election
Bret Stephens is an especially insightful writer for, of all things, the New York Times. His column yesterday asks some questions the country very much needs to ponder:
Can the left be honest that the tragedies unfolding today in American cities are as much the story of insufficient policing as they are of abusive policing? Does it get that “law and order” is a precondition to civil liberty, not an impediment to it? Is it willing to say that the American founders who bequeathed us the institutions of liberal democracy should be honored, not despised? And does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the extremes in his own party, or does he just mean to appease them?
His piece makes other painful points as well.
It seems that Stephens would like to vote for Biden over Trump, but wonders whether Biden understands the gravity of the current insurrection and its implications for governance — and, even if so, whether he has the strength and conviction to do anything about it.
[Vicky Osterweil’s book, “In Defense of Looting”] is symbolically important. I became aware of it when several friends separately forwarded to me the NPR interview. Many of these friends, I suspect, will reluctantly vote for Trump — not out of sympathy for him, but out of disgust with defenses of looting and other things they see too often on the left.
What else are they seeing? A CNN chyron from a burning Kenosha: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.” A video of an outdoor diner at a Washington, D.C., restaurant being yelled at by Black Lives Matter protesters because she won’t raise a fist in solidarity. Republican Senator Rand Paul and his wife getting harassed by a swarm of protesters as they left the White House.
And more: Trump being mocked in 2017 for warning that if statues of Robert E. Lee come down, then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson statues will be next — and then radical demonstrators doing exactly that three years later. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York scolding Orthodox Jews in April for appearing to flout social distancing rules at a Brooklyn funeral, but then making an exception for Black Lives Matter demonstrations a few months later. Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, celebrating a “summer of love” in the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” and then watching the area descend, with depressing predictability, into violent anarchy.
The list could be longer, but the question it leaves in the minds of wavering voters is exactly the question Trump most wants asked: Can the left be trusted with power?
That indeed is the question. Many voters find Trump to be a crude, vulgar, self-absorbed lout. But they also noticed that the grotesque lawlessness and violence that now besets our country got barely a mention at the Democratic National Convention. On election day, I suspect many of them will be asking if they want to live with the risks that silence implies.
The Bret Stephens column is here.
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