Before Biden made inflation one of the top issues that Americans are concerned about, Republicans were raising the alarm about the rise of crime. Democrats have been notoriously weak on crime for a long time now, but the Black Lives Matter movement ultimately forced them to establish themselves more aggressively as the party of defunding the police and degrading law and order under the guise of promoting racial equality. In 2020, we watched as Democrats made excuses for the George Floyd riots, and the liberal media went into overdrive to justify them, even declaring them “mostly peaceful” as businesses were burned and innocent people were killed.
One issue that is clearly related to both crime and inflation is skyrocketing shoplifting, which is happening in mostly Democrat-controlled cities where weak-on-crime policies have given criminals ownership of the streets. Various stores have closed down because they can’t control theft. Videos of shoplifters walking out of stores with expensive merchandise have gone viral on social media, as these criminals know that few if any consequences await them, even if they get caught. Earlier this year, a security guard at a Walgreens pharmacy in New York was arrested for stopping a shoplifter. California attempted to pass legislation banning retail employees from stopping shoplifters. A CVS in our nation’s capital won’t even keep merchandise on the shelves because shoplifting is such a huge problem.
But shame on you if you’re concerned about shoplifting, because clearly you don’t understand the real reason why it’s happening, and you’re probably racist. At least, that’s what CNN expects us to believe.
"While shoplifting has seemingly never been a bigger problem than it is now, shoplifting has long captured the public’s attention,” explains Nathaniel Meyersohn, consumer reporter for CNN Business. "Anxiety over shoplifting is an enduring phenomenon and is often a stand-in for larger concerns of cultural, economic or political changes."
Are you shaking your head in disbelief yet? Well, get ready. According to Meyersohn, shoplifting is a political issue.
“Shoplifting has also become a politically charged crime that many on the right and some Democrats have exploited to oppose criminal justice policy reforms,” he writes. "Those reforms had gained bipartisan support in both red and blue states and were meant to roll back decades of mass incarceration policies, which hit Black and brown communities hardest. Many political leaders, retailers and law enforcement officials now want to mobilize a stronger response to crack down on theft and other crime."
You see? Your anxiety over shoplifting is really a manifestation of racism. How dare store owners expect people to pay for merchandise? That’s just crazy white supremacist thinking there.
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But to explain what all this shoplifting is really about and why people have the audacity to be concerned about it, Meyersohn sought the opinions of leftist academics.
“The figure of a shoplifter may provide for a scapegoat for deeper problems that are more complex and intractable,” James Walsh, the director of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s graduate program on criminology and justice, told Meyersohn. “It resonates with broader concerns about law and disorder.”
“The concern over shoplifting taps into a larger narrative about how urban areas are out of control,” said author and historian at Ohio Wesleyan University Michael Flamm.
“Historically, shoplifting has always had this outsized impact on public discourse,” explained Alex Vitale, author and professor of sociology at Brooklyn College.
It's not surprising that a combination of CNN and academia delivered up such a steaming pile of garbage.
