Gee Golly Gosh—WaPo Editorial Board Member Can't Figure Out Why Left Is Bad on Crime

The editorial boards of The New York Times and The Washington Post are filled with people who think Bernie Sanders is a smidge too centrist. You may find one or two who bristle at this assertion, but I'm probably not offending most of them. Some of the most outlandish things I find to mock in the Opinion sections of the Times and WaPo come from the boards. 

The ones who are supposed to be the grownups. 

When one of them writes an Op-Ed on their own, it can often be even weirder than what the group can come up with when they're in full commie collective mode. On Tuesday, Washington Post columnist and editorial board member Eduardo Porter published a piece titled, "Why can't the left deal with crime?" 

I was hooked. 

We've all witnessed major Democrat-run cities descend into havens for criminals, and the reasons seem rather plain. If we're playing connect the dots, there might be three dots in this one. We'll return to this in a moment. 

I was just dying to see why Mr. Porter was so mystified. 

The first two paragraphs of the article let me know that, even if Porter's question in the headline was sincere, he would wander down all the wrong alleys looking for answers. 

The Washington Post: 

Shaken by the headlines about violent crime in New York City’s subway, Gov. Kathy Hochul went on TV last month “to demonstrate that Democrats fight crime.” Deploying the National Guard to help police the subway system, she said, would disprove “this narrative that Republicans have said, and hijacked the story that we’re soft on crime.”

The governor’s point amounts to an uncomfortable proposition to many in her party: When crime becomes a political problem, Democrats find nothing better to do than resort to cops, prisons and other Republican-branded strategies to address it.

That's right; the Democrats have wandered so far off course when it comes to fighting crime that having the police arrest people and lock them up is now considered a "Republican-branded" strategy. Both used to be generally acknowledged as common sense.

Ever since the Democratic Party took up permanent residence in Progressiveland, they have decided that the only true criminal behavior is disagreeing with them politically. If you're a Republican, they're gunning for you. In their worldview, most of the people committing theft, assault, or even murder are merely misunderstood. Hugs, counseling, and, of course, plenty of taxpayer-funded government largesse are all that are needed to help these people. 

Porter goes on to detail how crime is a problem in left-leaning countries around the world and still never gets it. He does write about recidivism rates in the U.S. and comes to the conclusion that incarceration doesn't work. There is a case to be made that incarceration the way we're doing it doesn't work. Exploring that might be helpful. 

He then goes on to say, "There is next to no evidence that ramping up incarceration deters crime." What there is evidence of, however, is that letting criminals back onto the streets often has tragic consequences, especially in the last few years. 

The contempt that American leftists have for law enforcement is on display throughout this article every time Porter implies that the police are some sort of right-wing scheme. 

Near the end of the Op-Ed, he offers this quote from an ACLU operative: 

“It’s a pretty well-worn playbook: When voters complain about crime, politicians believe they must lean into punishment,” Flenniken said. Criminal justice reform could provide a promising path for Democrats, she added. “Unfortunately, we haven’t had enough candidates courageous enough to offer a different vision.”

That's not a disconnect; it's a break from reality. The worst crime problems we've seen in America since the "Defund the Police" frenzy of 2020 have happened in places where far-left DAs have been elected on criminal justice reform platforms. The laws that have allowed thieves to essentially destroy San Francisco's retail tax base have all been enacted in the name of criminal justice reform. The city is in a financial death spiral precisely because Democrats are resentful of the rule of law and have had their way. 

The bottom line is that they can't deal with crime because they don't want to deal with crime. If they ever do in places like San Francisco, Chicago, or Portland, they'll run into some uncomfortable answers about the real root causes of the problem.

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